Associate Professor John Barton has received a Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (R35) from the National Institutes of Health. 

This 5-year grant will support Barton’s project titled “Methods for quantifying selection and predicting evolutionary dynamics.” The goal of this work is to develop methods for quantifying natural selection in genetic sequence data collected over time. Barton and his team want to apply these methods to understand and predict the evolution of pathogens. Another goal of this project is to apply evolution-based methods to interpret high-throughout mutagenesis experiments. 

The Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award provides investigators with greater stability and flexibility, allowing them to focus on important breakthroughs. This grant will support Barton’s salary and enable two PhD students to work on this project.  

“I’m excited to continue my lab’s research in this area and to expand our methods to incorporate ideas from quantitative genetics, which focuses on the connection between genetics, quantitative traits and natural selection,” Barton said.