Ewan Birney awarded ERC Synergy grant to study variation in vertebrates

October 23, Hinxton – EMBL-EBI Director, Ewan Birney and Jochen Wittbrodt, Professor at Heidelberg University, have been awarded an ERC Synergy grant to investigate the sources of phenotype variation in a complex vertebrate, the medaka fish. The research could shed light on how the environment – and especially stochastic, or random, elements in the environment – influences the characteristics of an organism.

“Each and every one of us is a mixture of our genetics and our environment,” explains Birney. “But while certain elements of our environment are more deliberate – such as where we live or what we eat – others are not. The latter include things like what viruses or chemicals we come into contact, often in critical windows of development. What we would like to do in our research is find out where the limits of genetics, environment and randomness fall. We will study this using a complex vertebrate, the medaka fish.”

“Medaka is an ideal organism to study such questions,” continues Wittbrodt. In humans, these studies are limited to identical twins. Medaka fish tolerate inbreeding, allowing us to establish unlimited numbers of genetically identical individuals. We can now represent a full population by inbred, clonal lines.”

The research will exploit the unique properties of medaka fish, which can be fully inbred. The researchers have already inbred and performed whole genome sequencing on a panel of 111 genetically diverse medaka fish. The next step is to phenotype these fish and analyse the data to trace the variation between genetic, environmental and stochastic components.

This research focuses on the principles of the sources of variation for vertebrates but the results could help researchers understand how phenotype variation works in other complex vertebrates, including humans. Understanding the sources of phenotype variation and stochastic behaviours could help advance personalised medicine.