Interfaculty Bioinformatics Unit

Projects

Polyfermenthealth

Thomas Roder

I am developing a new yoghurt fermented with multiple bacterial strains selected from a large database. The challenge is to define interesting targets and then to select the appropriate bacteria, mostly based on analysis of genomic data. Later, these hypotheses will be tested in specific-pathogen-free, germ-free and isobiotic mice. I am affiliated with the Interfaculty Bioinformatics Unit but also with Agroscope and the Inselspital.

 

Francisella tularensis holarctica 

Sara Doina Schütz

I am working with Francisella tularensis holarctica, which is a highly infectious bacterium that can cause the zoonotic disease tularemia in humans. I am interested in the functional characterization of different genotypes occurring in Switzerland. Using a proteomic and transcriptomic approach my goal is to understand the persistence and the transmission of the pathogen in the tick cell host on a cellular and molecular level. I am affiliated to the Interfaculty Bioinformatics Unit at the University Bern and Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz BABS (Spiez Laboratory).

 

Signatures of Inversions and Locally Adapted Alleles

Thomas Behrens

With simulations of evolutionary dynamics using the software SLiM, I am investigating patterns of diversity, differentiation, and linkage disequilibrium resulting from chromosomal inversions capturing locally adapted alleles. Ultimately, these results will be compared to molecular signatures in natural data to better understand the establishment of inversions in natural populations.

 

Immune evasion in pandemic

Sylvie Tillé

I am interested to understand how an immune evasion of a virus can occur in a pandemic where there is vaccination. For this I implement simulation of SIR models, an epidemiological compartmental model. The goal is to understand which factors influence and explain the vaccination evasion of a virus in a network structure population in particular the vaccination strategy and how the behaviour of the population can influence the evolution of the disease.