Conceptual projects on explaining patterns and relationships regarding the effects of mutations, in which new models are proposed, theoretical and analytical results are reported
How do we explain genetic dominance? (MS in prep, with George Zhang)
What explains the complex relationship between growth rate r and carrying capacity K? Wei, X., and Zhang, J. rK-relationship and pleiotropy by environment interactions resulting from rate-maintenance and rate-efficiency tradeoffs.(2019) PLOS Biology What creates diminishing returns epistasis? And how does it change across environments? Wei, X., and Zhang, J. Patterns and mechanisms of diminishing returns from beneficial mutation. (2019) Molecular Biology and Evolution Is there an optimal genetic distance that optimizes hybrid vigor? How do we find it? Wei, X., and Zhang, J.The optimal mating distance resulting from heterosis and genetic incompatibility. (2018) Science Advances What is the intrinsic relationship between robustness and evolvability? Wei, X., and Zhang, J.Why phenotype robustness promotes phenotype evolvability. (2017) Genome Biology and Evolution Why are ribosomal proteins extremely short? Wei, X., and Zhang, J.On the origin and composition of ribosomes. (2018) Genome Biology and Evolution |
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Method development projects on providing new methods for analyzing genomic data, which is a combination of method development, simulation, benchmark, and data analyses
Estimating asymmetric migration rate and effective population size using ancestral recombination graphs (near completion with Rasmus Nielsen)
Detecting selection in admixed population (in development with Kailey Ferger and Priya Moorjani) Estimating selection for overlapping genes Wei, X., and Zhang, J. A simple method for estimating the strength of natural selection on overlapping genes. (2015) Genome Biology and Evolution Better implemented tool for estimating selection for overlapping genes Nelson, C., Ardern, Z., Wei, X. OLGenie: estimating natural selection to predict functional overlapping genes. (2020) Molecular Biology and Evolution |
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Data-mining projects which are driven by the available data and particular evolutionary questions of interest
Recombination, GC-bias gene conversion, and crossover interference (in development with Laurent Duret)
Ongoing selection in humans (in completion with Ziqing Pan) Annotating the SARS-CoV-2 genome (preprinted, in revision) Nelson, C.*, Ardern, Z.*, Goldberg, T., Meng, C., Kuo, C-H., Ludwig, C., Kolokotronis, S-O., Wei, X. Dynamically evolving novel overlapping gene as a factor in the COVID-19 pandemic Patterns of gene by envirionment interactions in yeast Wei, X., and Zhang, J.The genomic architecture of genotype by environment interactions in natural polymorphism (2017) Genetics |
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Theoretical projects on population genetic models and their properties, which are fun!
Multiple mergers coalescent (in development with Monty Slatkin)
The rate of evolution in a two deme model with differential selection Wei, X., Zhao, L., Lascoux, M., and Waxman, D.Population structure and the rate of evolution. (2015) Journal of Theoretical Biology |
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The published and preprinted work attached here are mostly 'old' projects, as it takes a typical 80% of time to complete the last 20% of each project, and it may take another year from submission to publication. In recent years, I have been practicing preprints, and advocating for communicating work in progress. Some of my ongoing projects which reflect my current research interest are also listed. Please feel free to get in touch if you are interested in knowing more about my work in progress.