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Dr. Adam Reitzel (Professor in Biological Sciences) has been awarded a R15 AREA grant by NIGMS (NIH) to study the roles of genetic and environmental variation in the epigenetics of the model sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. This research will determine how biotic and abiotic variation impacts the distribution and quantity of DNA methylation using a […]

Modeling Plasmodium falciparum Diagnostic Test Sensitivity using Machine Learning with Histidine-Rich Protein 2 Variants Colby T Ford, Gezahegn Alemayehu, Kayla Blackburn, Karen Lopez, Cheikh Cambel Dieng, Eugenia Lo, Lemu Golassa, and Daniel Janies Malaria, predominantly caused by Plasmodium falciparum, poses one of largest and most durable health threats in the world. Previously, simplistic regression-based models […]

COVID-19 WEBINAR: UNDERSTANDING THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE PANDEMIC You can access the webinar recording here. To learn more about COVID-19 related research that is being conducted at UNC Charlotte, visit Janies Lab. Dr. Denis Jacob Machado is also organizing a symposium on Virology in the SARS-CoV-2 Era. More information about that virtual meeting can be […]

Industrial use of antibiotics may cause unusual evolutionary process. A new study, published in the current issue of the journal Cladistics, analyzes a massive genetic data set involving genomes of 29,255 strains of the bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli) collected between 1884 and 2018 to examine the evolution of 409 different genes that enable various […]

The CVS drive-through line isn’t just for picking up prescriptions anymore, it’s also a one-stop shop for COVID-19 testing. And the person who is collecting the sample to be tested, isn’t a health care worker—it’s you. If you’ve wondered what the self-swab process is like, WFAE’s Sarah Delia has this hands-on account. Read the full […]

SYMPOSIUM: VIROLOGY IN THE SARS-COV-2 ERA I MEETING OF SYSTEMATICS, BIOGEOGRAPHY, AND EVOLUTION July 28-30, 2020 [Recorded on YouTube] UNC Charlotte Speakers: Phylogenomics of Orthocoronavirinae: evolutionary relationships between coronaviruses and their hosts. Visualizing transmission networks of pathogens using phylogenetic data with StrainHub July 28, 2020 | 4:50-5:15pm EST Denis Jacod Machado, Ph.D. July 28, 2020 […]

New Article Published in Cladistics by Marc W. Allard and Eric W. Brown Abstract What are considered fundamental principles within the Willi Hennig Society and published in their journal are not always fully appreciated by many other biological fields that have not been schooled in these disciplines of systematics principles and the reasons for why […]

New Article Published in Cladistics by John Wenzel Abstract In the rush to understand the coronaviruses that threaten human health, authors of many prominent papers have not performed phylogenetic analyses to the standard of the field today. Errors include faulty placement of the root of the phylogeny, outdated methods of reconstruction, poor taxon sampling, inappropriate […]

Article Published: Four Challenges Associated with Current Mathematical Modeling Paradigm of Infectious Diseases and Call for a Shift Shi Chen, Ph.D , Patrick Robinson, M.D., FIDSA, FACP, Daniel Janies, Ph.D, Michael Dulin, M.D., Ph.D Open Forum Infectious Diseases, ofaa333 Abstract: Mathematical models are critical tools to characterize COVID-19 dynamics and take actions accordingly. We identified […]

Cover Image: Global molecular phylogeny of Escherichia coli isolates from the Pathogen Detection project akin to the data used in Ford et al., in this issue of Cladistics entitled “Genetic capitalism and stabilizing selection of antimicrobial resistance genotypes in Escherichia coli”. (Image Credit Daniel Janies and Zachary Witter, University of North Carolina at Charlotte). Small […]