Theory of Evolution book

Professor McInerney has contributed a chapter to a newly-published book on “The Theory of Evolution: Principles, Concepts, and Assumptions“.     Details on the book (extracted from the promotional material of the book) Darwin’s nineteenth-century writings laid the foundations for modern studies of evolution, and theoretical developments in the mid-twentieth century fostered the Modern Synthesis. Since […]

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Manchester Evolution Symposium

This is the webpage of the Manchester Evolution Symposium, funded by the Templeton Foundation and the research Domain of Evolution, Systems and Genomics. Organiser: Professor James O. McInerney Key Administrator: Marian Halfpenny Strategic Funding Team Support: Dr. Daniel Jameson Thursday 14th December, Kanaris Theatre 10:30 Arrival, Registration & Coffee 11:00-11:30 Mark Wilkinson ‘Post Phylogenetic Systematics’ […]

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Short Video Explaining Pangenomes Paper

This is a short video to accompany our recent paper, published here: http://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol201740 The citation is: McInerney, J.O., McNally, A and O’Connell, M.J. (2017) Why Prokaryotes Have Pangenomes. Nature Microbiology 2, 17040 (doi:10.1038/nmicrobiol.2017.40). Please use the social media buttons to share.

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Prof. McInerney Becomes A Fellow of The Linnean Society

15th September 2016   Professor McInerney officially became an elected Fellow of the Linnean society of London at a meeting of the society on Thursday September 15th, 2016. Pictured is Prof. McInerney signing the register at an evening meeting of the society. Founded in 1788, the Society takes its name from the Swedish naturalist Carl […]

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Latest Paper: Combined Analysis of Variation in Core, Accessory and Regulatory Genome Regions Provides a Super-Resolution View into the Evolution of Bacterial Populations

Our latest paper has just been published. It is on the evolution of Escherichia coli, which is a pathogenic bacterium.  The work was led by Dr. Alan McNally, who has just moved from Nottingham Trent University to Birmingham University. The work centres on the analysis of what we call the pangenome of this bacterium.  There is a lot […]

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Latest Paper: Evolution A Four Billion Year Old Metabolism

The latest paper from the lab is a News and Views article entitled: Evolution: A four billion year old metabolism. The history of life on the planet is mostly the history of single-celled prokaryotes. Until recently, it was accepted that life was divided into three ‘domains’ — forms of life of equal standing in a taxonomic […]

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Seminar by Todd Vision

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Today Dr. Todd Vision gave a seminar in the Michael Smith Lecture Theatre on the subject of phenotypes and phenotype databases. The talk focussed on the Phenoscape database, how it has been assembled and what kinds of knowledge can be extracted from the database. You can find a variety of posters […]

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Templeton Foundation Confirms Funding

The John Templeton Foundation have confirmed the award of a two-year research grant to the laboratory of James McInerney at The University of Manchester. Do visit website to buy the best scales that will be helpful to do the research successfully. The grant will fund two post-doctoral researchers for two years each in order to […]

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Sir Henry Wellcome Post-Doctoral Fellowships 2016

We are actively looking for early-stage researchers to apply for Sir Henry Wellcome post-doctoral research funding. Preliminary application deadline: 3 May 2016 (5pm) Eligibility: You must be in the final year of your PhD studies or have no more than two years of postdoctoral research experience from the date of your PhD viva at the final […]

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Professor McInerney Elected Fellow Of The Linnean society

On the 17th March 2016, Professor McInerney was elected as a fellow of the Linnean Society.   From the linnean society website: The Linnean Society of London is the world’s oldest active biological society. Founded in 1788, the Society takes its name from the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) whose botanical, zoological and library collections […]

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Phylogenomics Summer School 2016 (May 29th-June3rd)

UPDATE: THE COURSE FOR 2016 IS NOW OVER [symple_social icon=”twitter” url=”twitter.com/mcinerneylab” title=”Follow Me” target=”blank” rel=””][symple_social icon=”facebook” url=”facebook.com/mcinerneylab” title=”Like or Share” target=”blank” rel=””] Current status of registrations (since April 4th) [wppb progress=100 option=”flat option=”animated-candystripe red” percent=inside fullwidth=true] What?: Week-long, intensive phylogenetics course covering all aspects of bioinformatics and phylogenetics/phylogenomics. Where?: Department of Biology, National University of Ireland […]

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Prof. McInerney Speaks At Carnegie Institution of Washington

Prof. McInerney spoke at the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW), Washington DC on Friday 13th November 2015. The conference was organised by CIW and the theme of the meeting was “Re-Conceptualizing the Origin of Life”. Sara Imani Walker and George Cody were the principle organisers, though a large organising committee put the programme together. Prof. […]

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Endosymbiotic Origins and Differential Losses of Genes in Eukaryotes

Nature have just published a full article concerning an analysis of horizontal (or lateral) gene transfer and how it is different between prokaryotes and eukaryotes [1].  Also, we examined whether eukaryotes experience significant continuous gene gains from prokaryotes over long periods of time, or whether we see evidence for discrete bursts of gene acquisitions. Hint: […]

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Prof. McInerney Inducted Into American Academy of Microbiology

At a luncheon at the New Orleans Mariott Hotel, Prof McInerney was inducted into the American Academy of Microbiology as a Fellow. In total, 79 fellows were elected this year.  According to the academy:   The American Academy of Microbiology (Academy) is the honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the world’s […]

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Writing about homology even when told not to

In late 2012, I got the idea that there were a few points to make about homology that were either not in the literature or they were there, but in relatively obscure places.  I thought it was time to pull these ideas together and see if there was something to be said about how homology […]

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Eukaryote Origins

In the last five years, there has been tremendous progress made in understanding the origin of the eukaryote cell. This progress has been on a number of fronts – phylogenetic, metabolic and bioenergetic and in terms of other data that relate directly to evolution. Our latest paper in PNAS is, I feel, the latest in […]

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The five biggest evolutionary transitions?

Have been thinking recently about what the five biggest evolutionary transitions might be.  Naturally, there are several transitions and indeed it is arguable that at every speciation event, there has been a transition – indeed at every mutational event, even. But which ones are the biggest?  Also, in this vein – what evolves and what […]

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Pervasive horizontal gene transfer in Chlamydia

The genome era has really taught us something impressive about the plasticity of bacterial genomes. Gene exchange between strains of the same species and gene exchange between different species is not limited to special categories of genes and is not limited to ‘oddball’ species.  It is pervasive, frequent and it is also a public health […]

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Two conferences in Colorado in one week

The research unit decamped to Colorado this week to attend the first MMPE (Molecular Mechanisms of Protein Evolution), which was held in the University of Colorado Denver medical school and the 12th ISCB Regional Meeting, which was held in Snowmass Colorado in the Silvertree Hotel. Speaking at the meeting were: Dr. Davide Pisani, Dr. James […]

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Survival of the sexiest

This is to announce that on Tuesday next (the 15th of November), there will be a talk given by Dr. James McInerney in JH2 in the John Hume Building at NUI Maynooth at 7:30pm, entitled:   Survival of the sexiest: Why females want a mate with a good sense of humour, a brightly coloured tail […]

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SMBE2012 in Dublin

The annual meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution will be held in Dublin next June from the 23rd to the 26th. In the coming week we will make the decisions on which symposia will be included in the final programme. This will be a great thing on one hand, because we get […]

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PVC bacteria are not half-way to being eukaryotes

Over the past few years, manuscripts have been appearing in the literature that have been suggesting that PVC (Planctomycetes, Verrucomicrobia, Chlamydia) bacteria are in many ways like Eukaryotes and consequently, they are an excellent system for understanding eukaryote biology and indeed this group of bugs actually gave rise to modern eukaryotes. This is complete nonsense. […]

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