Position: Post-doctoral researcher (July 2019-Present)

Current project: The molecular basis of social evolution in wasps.

Research interests: My major research aim is to investigate the molecular basis of sociality from a comparative genomics viewpoint. Using multiple whole genomes, transcriptomes and proteomes of wasp castes, we have an unprecedented level of information to explore the molecular underpinnings of phenotypic change.

Other interests: Workflow development. Using Nextflow to create truly reproducible science and improving the tooling for research into non-model organisms.

Background/Biography:

2019-Present: Post-doctoral Research Assistant, University College, London.

2015-2019: PhD candidate, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Barcelona.

2014-2015: Msc Biomedicine, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.

2013-2014: Research assistant, Bristol University (Sumner lab), Bristol.

2010-2011: MRes Biosystematics, Imperial College, London.

2006-2010: BSc Paleobiology, University College, London.

Publications:

Christopher D R Wyatt, Barbara Pernaute, André Gohr, Marta Miret-Cuesta, Lucia Goyeneche, Quirze Rovira, Marion C Salzer, Elvan Boke, Ozren Bogdanovic, Sophie Bonnal, Manuel Irimia. “A developmentally programmed splicing failure contributes to DNA damage response attenuation during mammalian zygotic genome activation”. Sci Adv 2022. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abn4935

Christopher D. R. Wyatt, Michael Bentley, Daisy Taylor, Emeline Favreau, Ryan E. Brock, Benjamin A. Taylor, Emily Bell, Ellouise Leadbeater & Seirian Sumner 2021. “Social complexity, life-history and lineage influence the molecular basis of caste in a major transition in evolution.” Biorxiv 2021. doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-835604/v1.

Marlétaz, Ferdinand, Panos N. Firbas, Ignacio Maeso, Juan J. Tena, Ozren Bogdanovic, Malcolm Perry, Christopher D. R. Wyatt, et al. 2018. “Amphioxus Functional Genomics and the Origins of Vertebrate Gene Regulation.” Nature. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0734-6.

Kennedy, Patrick, Gemma Baron, Bitao Qiu, Dalial Freitak, Heikki Helanterä, Edmund R. Hunt, Fabio Manfredini, et al. 2017. “Deconstructing Superorganisms and Societies to Address Big Questions in Biology.” Trends in Ecology and Evolution. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2017.08.004.

Maeso, Ignacio, Thomas L Dunwell, Chris D R Wyatt, Ferdinand Marlétaz, Borbála Vető, Juan A Bernal, Shan Quah, Manuel Irimia, and Peter W H Holland. 2016. “Evolutionary Origin and Functional Divergence of Totipotent Cell Homeobox Genes in Eutherian Mammals.” BMC Biology14 (1): 45. doi:10.1186/s12915-016-0267-0.

Guillemin, Marie-Laure, Loretto Contreras-Porcia, María Eliana Ramírez, Erasmo C Macaya, Cristian Bulboa Contador, Helen Woods, Christopher Wyatt, and Juliet Brodie. 2016. “The Bladed Bangiales (Rhodophyta) of the South Eastern Pacific: Molecular Species Delimitation Reveals Extensive Diversity.” Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution94 (Pt B): 814–26. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2015.09.027.

Giampietro, Costanza, Gianluca Deflorian, Stefania Gallo, Anna Di Matteo, Davide Pradella, Serena Bonomi, Elisa Belloni, et al. 2015. “The Alternative Splicing Factor Nova2 Regulates Vascular Development and Lumen Formation.” Nat Commun6 (October). Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9479.

Patalano, Solenn, Anna Vlasova, Chris Wyatt, Philip Ewels, Francisco Camara, Pedro G Ferreira, Claire L Asher, et al. 2015. “Molecular Signatures of Plastic Phenotypes in Two Eusocial Insect Species with Simple Societies.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America112 (45): 13970–75. doi:10.1073/pnas.1515937112.

Contact:

c (dot) wyatt (at) ucl.ac.uk