Jakob Strauss
I have joined the group in November 2009 as a MSc student for my master thesis. So far the focus of my studies has been in bioinformatics and evolutionary biology. Presently I work on the detection and evolution of a certain class of transposable elements, named mammalian wide interspersed repeats (MIRs). These repeats belong to the super family of core-sines and are exclusive to the class of mammalia. As the MIR element has been inactive since an estimated 130 millions years, it is highly diverged within and between mammalian species. By identifying MIR sequences comparing orthologous sites between different mammals, we collect data to build species adapted profiles of the MIR element to improve MIR annotation across the mammalian tree of life.