Research Interests and Accomplishments

Dr. Ewen Kirkness is an Investigator in the Genomic Medicine group at JCVI. He is also Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Physiology at The George Washington University. During his 15 years at TIGR/JCVI, Dr. Kirkness has acquired substantial genomics experience in a variety of projects. These have included both large-scale sequencing endeavors (ESTs, bacterial and mammalian genomes), and more focused analyses of specific gene families (e.g. novel ligand-gated ion channels).

His involvement with large-scale sequencing projects has required the development and application of novel strategies for sequencing, assembly and analysis of sequence data. For the last three years, Dr. Kirkness has managed projects at JCVI to sequence the genomes of hydra, louse and mosquito (including their bacterial endosymbionts). In addition, he has led projects to survey-sequence the genomes of dog and elephant shark.

Dr. Kirkness received his B.Sc. (Biochemistry) from Heriot-Watt University, UK in 1982, and his Ph.D. (Biochemistry) from the University of Leeds, UK in 1986. Prior to joining TIGR, he conducted postdoctoral research in molecular neurobiology at the National Institutes of Health, USA.

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