Mohamed A. Noor
Associate Professor and Associate Chair

919-613-8156

French Family Science Center 4214

Noor Lab

Research Interests: Speciation and evolutionary genetics, recombination

One of the greatest unsolved questions in biology is how continuous processes of evolutionary change produce the discontinuous groups known as species. My research has focused on understanding the processes that cause the evolution of barriers to gene exchange between diverging species, particularly hybrid sterility and species mating discrimination. My approaches are primarily classical or molecular genetic using Drosophila species as model organisms. Using these approaches, we have dissected the genetic basis of these barriers to gene exchange using molecular markers and QTL mapping methodologies or gene expression approaches. The recent availability of multiple whole-genome sequences (both publicly and those we have obtained ourselves) has dramatically enhanced the scope of progress we can make. In addition to questions in speciation, we have recently been studying the effects of fine-scale recombination heterogeneity on various evolutionary parameters including nucleotide diversity, divergence, and codon bias. See my lab web page for more information.

Recent Publications   (More Publications)   (search)

1. Drosophila 12 Genomes Consortium (Noor is 151st author of 417), Evolution of genes and genomes on the Drosophila phylogeny., Nature, vol. 450 no. 7167 (November, 2007), pp. 203-218  [abs].
2. MAF Noor, DA Garfield, SW Schaeffer, CA Machado, Divergence Between the Drosophila pseudoobscura and D. persimilis Genome Sequences in Relation to Chromosomal Inversions., Genetics, vol. 177 no. 3 (November, 2007), pp. 1417-1428  [abs].
3. AS Chang, MAF Noor, The genetics of hybrid male sterility between the allopatric species pair Drosophila persimilis and D. pseudoobscura bogotana: dominant sterility alleles in collinear autosomal regions., Genetics, vol. 176 no. 1 (May, 2007), pp. 343-349  [abs].
4. CA Machado, TS Haselkorn, MAF Noor, Evaluation of the genomic extent of effects of fixed inversion differences on intraspecific variation and interspecific gene flow in Drosophila pseudoobscura and D. persimilis., Genetics, vol. 175 no. 3 (2007), pp. 1289-1306 (ISSN: HASH(0xb258650).)  [abs].
5. ET Cirulli, RM Kliman, MAF Noor, Fine-Scale Crossover Rate Heterogeneity in Drosophila pseudoobscura., J Mol Evol, vol. 64 (January, 2007), pp. 129-135 (ISSN: HASH(0xc3d017c).)  [abs].