Richard Emes
Associate Professor in Bioinformatics, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences
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Biography
Richard Emes is an Associate Professor in Bioinformatics at Nottingham School of Veterinary Medicine and Science. Prior to moving to Nottingham he was a lecturer in the school of medicine at Keele University. He initially studied Zoology at the University of Wales (First Class, 1996) and completed a PhD in molecular parasitology (Glasgow 2000). But then undertook post-doctoral positions at Oxford University and the Sanger Institute Cambridge developing bioinformatics and comparative genomics approaches to investigate the evolution of genes and genomes. He was subsequently awarded an MRC Fellowship in Bioinformatics to study molecular evolution at University College London.
His research interests are in bioinformatics, comparative genomics and molecular evolution particularly in the fields of pathogen biology, epigenetics and neurobiology.
Bioinformatics Research Pages
Expertise Summary
Richard Emes is an elected Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, an editor of the Journals of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Research and the Open Journal of Genomics. He is the Sutton Bonington Campus local representative of the Genetics Society of Great Britain. He co-convenes the year three research methods and research project modules.
Research Summary
Bioinformatics is a cohesive discipline bringing together computer science statistics and biology. I collaborate widely with experimental and computational biologists. Current areas of active… read more
Selected Publications
- EMES, RICHARD D, 2008. Inferring function from homology. Methods in Molecular Biology, 453, 149-68.
- EMES, RICHARD D, POCKLINGTON, ANDREW J, ANDERSON, CHRISTOPHER N G, BAYES, ALEX, COLLINS, MARK O, VICKERS, CATHERINE A, CRONING, MIKE D R, MALIK, BILAL R, CHOUDHARY, JYOTI S, ARMSTRONG, J DOUGLAS and GRAN, 2008. Evolutionary expansion and anatomical specialization of synapse proteome complexity. Nature Neuroscience, 11(7), 799-806.
- RAMM, STEVEN A, OLIVER, PETER L, PONTING, CHRIS P, STOCKLEY, PAULA and EMES, RICHARD D, 2008. Sexual selection and the adaptive evolution of mammalian ejaculate proteins. Molecular biology and evolution, 25(1), 207-19.
- FRYER, ANTHONY A, NAFEE, TAMER M, ISMAIL, KHALED M K, CARROLL, WILLIAM D, EMES, RICHARD D and FARRELL, WILLIAM E, 2009. LINE-1 DNA methylation is inversely correlated with cord plasma homocysteine in man: a preliminary study. Epigenetics : official journal of the DNA Methylation Society, 4(6), 394-8.
Current Research
Bioinformatics is a cohesive discipline bringing together computer science statistics and biology. I collaborate widely with experimental and computational biologists. Current areas of active research include:
i) Comparison of complex biological datasets.
Biologists are fortunate to be researching in a data rich age, where gene and genome sequences from multiple species are available and can be linked either independently or through specialist databases to data types as diverse as structure, function, expression and evolutionary history. The successful mining and combination of this data can bolster traditional bench research by providing a filter or by generation of novel avenues of research (Emes Methods Mol Biol 2008). Ongoing research involves analysis of gene and protein expression studies and whole genome comparison of the human fetal epigenome (funded by the World Cancer Research Fund see http://www.keele.ac.uk/research/istm/FEG/index.htm).
ii) Comparative genomics of the mammalian synapse proteome.
Analysis of the post-synaptic proteome, a defined group of proteins with known importance in the processes of learning and memory, offers an insight into the development and evolution of the synapse, the basic building block of cognition. In collaboration with Seth Grant, The Sanger Institute, I am leading investigations into the evolutionary origin and subsequent modification of the protein networks of the mammalian synapse (Funded by the Royal Society, see Emes et al Nature Neuroscience 2008, Ryan et al BMC Neuroscience. 2008).
iii) Detection of adaptive evolution in genes and genomes.
The differential behaviour of therapeutics in varied organisms as highlighted by the disastrous effects of TGN1412 treatment during recent human drug trials has led pharmaceutical companies to re-evaluate how drug targets are selected. In collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline we have developing methods to allow the rapid identification of genes/pathways subject to differential adaptive evolution along human and experimental model organism lineages, by screening of multiple whole genome data (Vamathevan et al BMC Evol Biol 2008).
iv) Using computational and phylogenetic methods to determine adaptive molecular evolution related to pathogenicity.
The basis of this research is to open new avenues of understanding and potential therapeutic control. Research projects include, identification of rapid evolution in protein-coding gene families in parasite genomes and evolution of drug resistance in parasitic organisms by comparison of the complete protein coding complement of multiple genomes.
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