Dr. Andrew J. Roger

B.Sc. (Hon), (Biochemistry), Ph.D. (Biochemistry)

Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Dr. Andrew Roger is a native of Penticton, British Columbia's Okanagan Valley.

CURRENT RESEARCH

My current research is focused on understanding the structure and evolutionary history of genomes - that is, the full complement of DNA in an living cell. I primarily work on microbes (single-celled organisms) to try to understand how their genomes are arranged and expressed.

These organisms are simpler than multicellular creatures like us, and they represent the largest fraction of biodiversity. Furthermore, many of them, such as the malaria parasite (Plasmodium), or the "beaver fever" parasite (Giardia), cause significant disease in humans, killing hundreds of thousands of people worldwide every year. However, unlike us, the basic biology and the genomes of these organisms are poorly understood. In order to learn how to combat these disease-causing organisms and to understand how they evolve in the first place, we are studying their genomes and comparing them to their non-pathogenic relatives.

My research also explores how genes and genomes, in general, evolve, in order to shed light on how the living world diversified over the last 3.5 billion years of its history. We use both mathematical and computational tools to model the evolutionary process, allowing us to turn back the evolutionary clock billions of years. Ultimately, these techniques will be useful in determining how and why life diversified early in the history of the Earth.

CLINICAL/SCIENTIFIC IMPACT

The nature of my research - basic investigation into the structure of microbial cells and genomes and their evolutionary history - means its potential clinical impact lies well in the future. Ultimately, however, our investigations into microbial pathogens can lead to effective drug targets and to a better understanding of how microbes adapt to antibiotic agents.

Of more immediate importance is the impact of our research on the understanding of how life evolved. Currently, research centres, such as NASA, are funding "Astrobiology", the study of how life originated early on earth, with a view to assessing potential life on other planets. My research and that of my colleagues at Dalhousie are focussed in this area. We are elucidating how and why the major lineages of life evolved on earth. Our work will help provide future scientific investigations with a framework for the "tree of life," upon which can be mapped an understanding of how organisms, their genes and genomes have evolved, as genomic data for all of life's diversity become available.

INSPIRATION

As an undergraduate at UBC, I did an honour's research project in a lab that studies the evolution of organisms and their genomes. The fact that evolutionary information is contained within the genetic material of all living organisms was fascinating to me. With the amazing wealth of data from the entire living world coming from genome sequencing projects, we've only begun to tease out the evolutionary secrets hidden in genomes!

WHY DALHOUSIE

Dalhousie is one of the premier places in the world to study microbial genomics from an evolutionary and computational standpoint. The research groups of Ford Doolittle and Michael Gray have seeded a much larger research community in Dalhousie that now involves more than 10 faculty members and their research groups in 3 different Faculties (Medicine, Science and Computer Science). There is no other place in the world with this critical mass of researchers interested in our particular field. I have been at Dalhousie since my appointment in 1999 as Assistant Professor; I was also a Ph.D. student here from 1991-1996.

DIVERSIONS

Away from my lab, I can often be found cooking, entertaining, kayaking or otherwise traveling. I like to cook -- so my wife and I pass many evenings creating new culinary dishes. Inevitably this pastime leads to quite a few parties at our house. On non-winter days, we cram into our schedules as many camping trips, sea kayaking along coastal Nova Scotia and British Columbia, as we possibly can. I travel often to B.C. (where I grew up), and take trips farther afield to Japan, Australia and Europe.

MAJOR AWARDS/DISTINCTIONS

• 2004: Sloan Research Fellowship (Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in the US)
• 2004 - 2009: Peter Lougheed/CIHR New Investigator Salary award
• 1999 - 2004: Scholar in the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR) Program in Evolutionary Biology

For further information, please contact Dr. Andrew J. Roger using the Email contact form or by phone at 306 966-7475