De novo genes and the long-term direction of their subsequent evolution

Most of the work in Joanna's group these days is connected in some way to evolvability. Joanna is most interested in models that explicitly capture mechanistic constraints, whether from biochemistry, genetics, cellular biology, physiology, or ecology, and work out their evolutionary consequences. Specific interests at the moment include the robustness and evolvability of biological systems, the origins of coding sequences from non-coding ancestors, and the tension between relative and absolute competitions in evolution, ecology, and economics.