Yannick Wurm

Significant theoretical work has been conducted to explain how complex societies may have evolved. For the most part, an insect's behavior is governed by the genetic information inherited from its parents. It should thus be possible to discover the molecular-genetic mechanisms determining behavior.

My aim is to contribute to unraveling the molecular basis of how sociality evolved and of how genes control interactions between a society's members. To address this question, I work with the red fire ant Solenopsis invicta, a species which has been extensively studied due in part to its status as an invasive pest around the world.

The genomic tools I use include expression assays using cDNA microarrays, and bioinformatics analyses (with help from our ant genomics database, Vital-IT, Bioruby, R/Bioconductor and some hacking.

See also my personal webpage.

2012
Lecturer, Evolutionary and Organismal Biology Group, Queen Mary University, London, UK

2010-2011
Post-doc, Departement of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

2005-2009
Doctoral Student, Departement of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

2004
6 months as a 'research trainee' working with C. elegans in Richard Roy's laboratory at McGill University, Montreal.

2003
6 months as a junior software developer with Nicolas Zinovieff

1999-2004
Engineering studies in Bioinformatics and Modeling at Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA de Lyon), France