Welcome to the Assis group website! We are located in the beautiful beachside city of Boca Raton, FL.

Beach Birds in Boca Raton, Florida

Our group develops and applies computational approaches to address questions about the evolution of adaptive and disease-associated traits. A major focus of our work is on structural variations (SVs), which arise from duplications, deletions, inversions, and translocations of large genomic segments. Recent studies show that SVs are more prevalent and often impact phenotype to greater degrees than small-scale variations, suggesting that they serve as a major reservoir of adaptive and disease-related genetic diversity. We are currently designing novel machine learning methods for understanding the evolutionary and disease implications of different types of SVs by determining how they modify gene expression patterns, protein structures, and molecular interactions. We are also interested in predicting associations between SVs and diverse traits, including antibiotic resistance. These projects are supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Interested in our research? Join us!