About Us

• What are the major changes that occur in the eukaryotic genome during adaptive evolution?

• How is the panorama of transcriptomic and epigenomic variations during an evolutionary process?

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• How can we use the evolutionary adaptive potential of yeasts to generate strains tolerant to fermentation stresses?                                                                          

• How the CRISPR/Cas9 technology and the modern synthetic biology can be used in yeasts to engineer strains for the production of high-value chemicals? 

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Motivated by a FAPESP Young Investigators Award our lab was established in March 2014 to pursue those fundamental questions. We use genomic and experimental evolution tools to uncover the diversity of evolutionary variations that accumulate in controlled evolution experiments performed in our lab. Mostly, we probe the adaptation of yeast strains to key stressful factors relevant to the bioethanol industry (such as ethanol toxicity) and strive to uncover the genetic/epigenetic diversity undelaying the evolutionary process. Our goal is to understand evolution at a fine molecular level, while also contributing to improvement of sustainable bioenergy technologies. Our lab is located at the Institute for Research in Bioenergy of the São Paulo State University (UNESP).