My pronouns are he/him
I am interested in using endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) as molecular clocks to investigate how ancient viruses have evolved over millions of years. How old are retroviruses? How often have viruses integrated into our genome? Why are some ERVs transcriptionally active in our DNA? In the current climate of emerging viruses, looking into the past may provide us with deeper understanding of host-virus interactions and potentially identify novel forms of treatment. Currently, I am interested in updating our knowledge on lentiviruses that have infected rabbits and hares long before their divergence such as RELIK, and finding new virus lineages that populate their genomes.
