Dr. Eyal Privman

I study the molecular evolution of ants using genomic tools. As part of the Keller group I joined the analysis of the newly sequenced genome of the red imported fire ant Solenopsis invicta. This species is a unique model for the evolution of sociality because the genetic basis for a Mendelian trait affecting social behavior is known to be a non-recombining, Y-like "social chromosome" (Wang et al. 2013). The recent evolution of this system must have involved many micro- and macro-mutations that alter social organization, which are expected to be under selection in social animals. I apply comparative genomics and population genomics to study the evolution of this social chromosome and the specific genes that underlie the various biological functions responsible for this social polymorphism, especially chemical communication. In the past I have been working on algorithms for phylogeny and sequence alignment, and on applied research of co-evolving genes and of nucleases for use in gene therapy (see my old homepage)

2011-current
Post doctoral research fellow
Prof. Laurent Keller’s group, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne.
Embedded bioinformatician in collaboration with Prof. Marc Robinson-Rechavi of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics

2004-2010
Ph.D studies
Prof. Tal Pupko’s group, Life Science Faculty, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Thesis: “Hybrid methods inspired by the mutual dependency of sequence alignment and phylogeny reconstruction”

2005-2009
The Bioinformatics Unit, Tel Aviv University
Teaching the Perl programming course for M.Sc. students at the Life Sciences Faculty

2002-2004
Compugen Ltd.
Biological Data Assessment Team. Part of the group developing the LEADS platform for eukaryotic transcriptome modeling, based on alignments of ESTs to the genome.

2000-2003
B.Sc studies
Bioinformatics program, Tel Aviv University, Israel