Betancourt Lab
People
PI: Andrea Betancourt
Current affiliation: University of Liverpool, Institute of Integrative BiologyPh.D., supervised by Allen Orr at the University of RochesterFormer affiliations: University of Edinburgh, Vetmeduni ViennaI am an evolutionary geneticist, working to answer questions about adaptation such as: Do sex and recombination allow rapid adaptation? Does sex-linkage promote adaptation? How do organisms adapt so rapidly to transposable element invasions? To address these questions, I mainly use flies from the genus Drosophila as a model, and apply genomics, population genetics, and Drosophila genetics, with an occasional foray into modelling.Official University websiteGoogle Scholar profile
Current Members
Former Members
Tom Hill, Ph.D. 2016, Vetmeduni Vienna
Currently a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Rob Uncklessworking on host-parasite co-evolution in the Drosophila quinaria and testacea groups and the evolution of nucleopolyhedroviruses. Tom's Google Scholar profileAwarded a Staatspreis für die besten Dissertationenfrom the Austrian Ministry of Scienceand a Max Kade Fellowshipfrom the Austrian Academy of Sciences
Olga Pawlowska, Ph.D. 2019, University of Liverpool
Olga got her B.Sc. at the University of Warsaw, then continued to get her M.Sc. in medical biotechnology at the same university, working on identifying genetic mutations in patients with mitochondrial disorders. For her PhD, she worked on adaptation to the P-element in Drosophila simulans, which is a sister species of the genetic model, and defended in May 2019-- congratulations Olga!
Erasmus Visitor: Claudia Rámirez
Claudia got her B. Sc. In Biology at the University of Granada, then attained her M. Sc. In Advanced Genetics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, working on polymorphic inversions in the human genome. She studied the effect of transposable elements on the fitness of Drosophila simulans. She is now a PhD student at the Vetmeduni Vienna.
Research Technician: Meg Kelly
Megan attained her MSci in Zoology at the University of Manchester. During her Integrated Masters she investigated the function of Notch3 in vascular smooth muscle cells and the role it played in vascular tone for CADASIL research.
She studied genetic variation in Drosophila simulans and transposable element suppression.
Summer intern: Rui Jia Wong
Rui is an undergraduate at the University of Liverpool. She is currently evaluating the impact of hybrid dysgenesis in the germline of D. simulans males and females, under a studentship awarded by the Genetics Society.
Marie Curie Fellow: Valeria Romero Soriano
Valèria studied for her B. Sc. in Biotechnology and M. Sc. in Advanced Genetics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She then got a fellowship to start a PhD in Genetics in the Evolutionary Biology Group of the same university, under supervision of Dr. Pilar García Guerreiro. During her PhD, she assessed the impact of interspecific hybridization on the expression and regulation of transposable elements, using two Drosophila closely-related species -Drosophila buzzatii and D. koepferae- as a model. She came to Liverpool to work on selection on transposable elements in Drosophila melanogaster, but has now won an EC Marie Curie fellowship to work on transposon silencing in Drosophila males.
Postdoctoral Researcher: Ewan Harney
Ewan obtained his MBiolSci in Biology from the University of Sheffield and carried out his PhD at the University of Liverpool, studying developmental plasticity in the water flea Daphnia. Following his PhD he worked at the European Institute for Marine Studies (IUEM) in France. Subsequently he was awarded a LabexMer fellowship to work at the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer), where he investigated acclimation of great scallop populations to climate stress. In his current project he is investigating the selective impact of transposable element variation in Drosophila melanogaster. He is now a Marie Curie Fellow at IBE Barcelona.
Research Technician: Rowan Connell
Rowan attained her B.Sc in Zoology and Genetics at the University of Liverpool and remained at the same institution to obtain an M.Res in Evolutionary Ecology. She is now working on the fitness consequences of transposable elements.