News

HFSP Grant Awarded to Team!

Our grant, headed by Ken Welch (UToronto) was awarded from the Human Frontier Science Program: “Optimization of metabolic flux in the hummingbird: from enzymes to ecology”.  Our part in the grant involves transcriptomic and epigenetic characterization of the hummingbird to understand its incredible metabolism, using diverse sequencing tools including PacBio IsoSeq and chromatin/methylation profiling. The interdisciplinary team includes: Dr. Welch (UToronto) has expertise in hummingbird ecology and metabolic physiology, Dr. Timp (JHU) is an expert in genomic and computational approaches, Dr. Wong (JHU) brings experience in biochemistry and the molecular biology of metabolic enzymes, and Dr. Valle (Center for Cooperative Research in Biosciences) is an expert in biophysics and structural biology.

We’re currently using resources and help provided by PacBio to help us with a first de novo transcriptome of the hummingbird liver to understand the differences in its genes.