Assistant Professor (also with Obstetrics and Gynecology; Member Perinatology Research Branch); Ph.D., New York University, 2000. Molecular Evolution of Birth and Reproduction; Comparative Genomics; Aerobic Metabolism; Molecular Anthropology; Primate Evolution; Phylogeography; Mammalian Systematics.
Research Interests
Our laboratory uses molecular evolutionary and comparative genomic approaches to understand genetic change during human evolution. Current research in our laboratory has two directions. In the first direction we are elucidating the evolutionary history of birth and labor. This research, which is funded by the Perinatology Research Branch of the NIH's National Institute of Child Health and Development, is taking advantage of comparative genomic data to test evolutionary hypotheses in genes implicated in preterm birth in humans. We expect this comparative approach will inform the understanding of major obstetrical syndromes. Our long term goal is to describe accurately the evolution of parturition in mammals. In the second direction we are studying the evolution of mammals in general and primates in particular. Our approach is to infer well-supported phylogenetic trees in primates, and to use these trees as the foundation upon which we test hypotheses about positive Darwinian selection in human evolution. Technologies we use include DNA sequencing, microarrays, and quantitative PCR (QPCR). We are also developing high-throughput computational methods for evolutionary genomic analysis. These techniques have allowed us to understand patterns of natural selection in genes involved in aerobic energy metabolism, and we have also studied the pattern of gene expression in the brains of humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and Old World monkeys.
Selected Publications
Grossman LI, Wildman DE, Schmidt TR, and Goodman M (2004) Accelerated evolution of the electron transport chain in anthropoid primates. Trends in Genetics 20: 578-585.
Doan JW, Schmidt TR, Wildman DE, Uddin M, Goldberg A, Hüttemann M, Goodman M, Weiss ML, and Grossman LI (2004) Coadaptive evolution in cytochrome c oxidase: 9 of 13 subunits show accelerated rates of nonsynonymous substitution in anthropoid primates. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 33: 944-950.
Wildman DE, Bergman TJ, al-Aghbari A, Sterner KN, Newman TK, Phillips-Conroy JE, Jolly CJ, and Disotell TR (2004) Mitochondrial DNA evidence for the origin of hamadryas baboons. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 32: 287-296.
Uddin M, Wildman DE, Liu G, Xu W, Johnson RM, Hof PR, Kapatos G, Grossman LI, and Goodman M (2004) Sister grouping of chimpanzees and humans as revealed by genome-wide phylogenetic analysis of brain gene expression profiles. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101: 2957-2962.
Wildman DE and Goodman M (2004) Humankind's place in a phylogenetic classification of living primates. In S Wasser Ed. Evolutionary Theory and Processes: Modern Horizons, Papers in Honour of Eviatar Nevo . The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 293-311.
Wildman DE, Uddin M, Liu G, Grossman LI, and Goodman M. (2003) Implications of natural selection in shaping 99.4% nonsynonymous DNA identity between humans and chimpanzees: Enlarging genus Homo . Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci . USA . 100: 7181-7188.
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