Chris joined the Florence Computational Biology Group back in 2020, when he won a research grant for studying transcription regulatory networks in Antarctic bacteria. After completion of the grant under the supervision of Marco Fondi, in 2021 he applied for and won the 37° cycle PhD position in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology. His area of research revolves around microbial adaptation to environmental changes, metabolic homeostasis, genomic features and adaptations, gene organization and transfer, and biotechnological applications of microorganisms. His best efforts are now channeled towards two main projects: (1) the optimization of our software, MeDuSa, for the scaffolding of eukaryotic contigs and (2) the characterization of a horizontally transferred cassette involved in quorum sensing. He is also actively contributing to multiple side projects, which include the study of genetic variation in conditional mutants of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the detection of genomic rearrangements using ONT sequencing data in Acinetobacter venetianus. In his free time, he likes to play piano and guitar, travel, read and stay active.

Github:    https://github.com/chrisondakeys