Current members
Cei Abreu-Goodger (Group Leader)
I’m a Reader in Bioinformatics at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution and Head of the Graduate School in SBS.
My research interests are focused on gene regulation, small RNAs and transposable elements, using computational analyses and a variety of host-pathogen models.
I did my PhD in Mexico, studying the evolution of regulatory RNA in bacteria, a postdoc in Cambridge UK working on the function of microRNAs in vertebrates, and was a group leader in Mexico for ten years before moving to the University of Edinburgh.
I enjoy cycling and playing touch rugby.
Yenetzi Villagrana-Pacheco (PhD student)
Interests: single-cell transcriptomics, gene regulation, small RNAs
Adriana Orrego-Durañona (PhD student, co-supervised with Elizabeth Bayne)
Interests: fungal pathogens, microRNAs, transcriptomics, epigenetics, cell biology
Sueden Oliveira de Souza (PhD student, co-supervised with Elizabeth Bayne)
Interests: fungal pathogens, microbiology, cell biology, ???
Katharina Kases (PhD student, co-supervised with Sara Macias)
Interests: RNA viruses; host-pathogen interactions, especially post-transcriptional regulation; siRNAs; DnD & baking.
Sofía García-Bautista (PhD student, starting in Oct 2025)
Interests: evolution, genome regulation, transposable elements, short-linear motifs in proteins, biostatistics, mathematical modelling, bioinformatics
In my PhD I will study evolutionary processes involving mobile elements and short-linear motifs, at the genome and proteome level, focusing on sequence patterns and more!
Previous members, now collaborators!
Isaac Martínez-Ugalde
Former PhD student, now a postdoc in Julie Claycomb’s lab
Interests: parasitic nematodes and the non-coding genome.
Roberto (Beto) Bermúdez
Former PhD student and postdoc (in Amy Buck’s lab), Beto is currently a Senior Bioinformatician in CRUK Scotland.
Previous students
Zhikai Xu (MSc Bioinformatics student 2024/25)
Project: Do microRNAs help control the biological noise of gene expression?
Yuhan Fu (MSc Bioinformatics student 2024/25, co-supervised with Laura Ross)
Project: Methylation-Mediated Regulation of Transposable Elements in citrus mealybug
Asli Dagdelen (MSc Bioinformatics student 2024/25, co-supervised with Jarrod Hadfield)
Project: Gene expression evolvability revisited: comparing the effect of new mutations withthose filtered by natural selection
Shon Kurian George (MSc Bioinformatics student 2023/24)
Project: Using spatial transcriptomics to evaluate if microRNAs regulate expression profiles at cell-type boundaries
Matas Bukelskis (MSc Data Science for Biology student 2023/24, co-supervised with Stijn van Dongen)
Project: Application of a novel clustering approach for inference of extracellular sRNA producing transposons in H. bakeri
Logan Wang (MSc Bioinformatics student 2022/23)
Project: Comparative genomics of parasitic nematodes to explore the importance of secreted small RNAs
Yao Tong (MSc Bioinformatics student 2022/23)
Project: Parasites of parasites: genome expansion in Strongylida nematodes
Thomas Cattanach (Honours student)
Project: Comparing the secreted sRNA repertoire of two species of gastrointestinal parasite
Guanke Bao (MSc Bioinformatics student)
Project: Predicting regulatory motifs from large scale transcriptome resources
Xiaoqi Luo (MSc Bioinformatics student)
Project: Predicting regulatory motifs from large scale transcriptome resources
Tantely Delaine (Evolutionary Biology Honours student)
Dissertation: “Genomic drivers of gene regulation by small RNA in the parasitic nematode, Heligmosomoides bakeri“