Andrew J. Roger | |
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Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of British Columbia, Dalhousie University |
Influences | Ford Doolittle |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Dalhousie University |
Main interests | Eukaryotic organisms, biology and evolution of mitochondria, hydrogenosomes and mitosomes, comparative genomics of unicellular eukaryotes, modeling the evolution of genes and genomes |
Website | https://medicine.dal.ca/departments/department-sites/biochemistry-molecular-biology/our-people/faculty/roger.html |
Andrew J. Roger is a Canadian-Australian molecular biologist and evolutionary bioinformatician. He is currently a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Dalhousie University and was the founding director (from 2008-2017) of the inter-departmental Centre for Comparative Genomics and Evolutionary Bioinformatics (CGEB).[1]
Roger received his B.Sc from the University of British Columbia and his PhD from Dalhousie University. Roger was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2012[2] for his work on eukaryotic superkingdoms, his work on the evolution of mitochondrion-related organelles in anaerobic protists and his contribution to investigating and improving phylogenetic models [3]
A former student of Ford Doolittle, Roger's research focuses on the 'deep' Tree of Life, especially determining the super-kingdom-level relationships amongst eukaryotes and clarifying the nature of the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA).[4] Using phylogenomic approaches Roger's group elucidates the patterns and process of genome evolution in eukaryotic microbes. His research also addresses the evolutionary origin of mitochondria, hydrogenosomes, and mitosomes,[5][6][7] the role of lateral (horizontal) gene transfer in eukaryotic genome evolution[8][9] and how anaerobic parasites evolved from free-living ancestors.