New Way to Study Evolution

A pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and scientist named Anaximander theorized that humans evolved from fish. Since then, scientists have studied the evolutionary process in myriad ways — examining fossils, observing the natural world, conducting field experiments.

But Michael DeGiorgio, Ph.D., who recently joined FAU as an assistant professor in the Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, employs a hot new methodology for studying evolution. It's called bioinformatics, a mix of mathematics, computer science and statistics to analyze the biological evidence.

For instance, DeGiorgio pinpoints genes that underwent natural selection by computationally modeling genetic diversity. “Genetic diversity starts to decrease near a site of natural selection,” he said. “We build a mathematical model of what we expect from the evolutionary process and ask, ‘Does the pattern of diversity we’re observing in the genetic data mimic what we would expect from our mathematical model of evolution?’”

The highly interdisciplinary nature of bioinformatics is reflected in the academic path DeGiorgio took to FAU. With the intent to obtain a degree in computer science, he started his undergraduate education at FAU, where he took his first calculus class from Roger Goldwyn, Ph.D., who still teaches in FAU’s Department of Mathematical Sciences. Goldwyn so inspired him, that DeGiorgio went on to earn a degree in mathematics and in computer science at the University of Central Florida. He earned his doctoral degree in from the University of Michigan.

A student presentation on bioinformatics showed him he could apply mathematics and computing to important problems in other fields. During his first year at Michigan, DeGiorgio changed course three times: from biophysics, to biochemistry, then finally bioinformatics. After completing a NSF-funded postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, he became an assistant professor of biology and statistics at Pennsylvania State University.

Now, his more than $1.5 million in grants will establish a computational group at FAU, and carry forward the idea Anaximander proposed two and a half millennia ago.