The Sumner Lab Insect Research Group · UCL
Christopher Wyatt

Christopher Wyatt

Eco-Flow Project Lead

Sumner Lab · UCLCurrent group

Position
Eco-Flow project lead (September 2023–present)
In the lab
2013–2014, 2019–present
Contact

c.wyatt@ucl.ac.uk

Personal website Bluesky GitHub Eco-Flow ORCID

About

Research interests

Building tools for fully reproducible data pipelines in ecological omics research. Using genomes, transcriptomes, proteomes and other research inputs, we build robust, tested, reproducible, scalable and easy-to-use data pipelines to speed up research output in our field, through the Eco-Flow project.

Other interests

Research into non-model organisms — wasps primarily — and their genomes.

Research

Career

  1. Sept 2023–present: Project lead (Eco-Flow)
  2. 2019–2022: Post-doctoral Research Assistant, University College London
  3. 2015–2019: PhD candidate, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Barcelona
  4. 2014–2015: MSc Biomedicine, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
  5. 2013–2014: Research assistant, Bristol University (Sumner lab)
  6. 2010–2011: MRes Biosystematics, Imperial College London
  7. 2006–2010: BSc Palaeobiology, University College London

Projects

Eco-Flow

Eco-Flow is a UCL-based community building open-source Nextflow pipelines for agri-ecology and evolutionary biology, funded by BBSRC. The aim is to make genomic analyses something an ecologist can run, rather than something they first have to build: reproducible, tested, scalable workflows written to nf-core standards, with training alongside them.

Pipelines so far include genomeqc (comparing genome and assembly quality), gwas, and, in the Eco-Flow organisation, excon, synteny, comparete, nanoporemetabarcoding and pollen-metabarcoding.

Get in touch at ecoflow.ucl@gmail.com, or see the code on GitHub.

Wasp genomes, evolution and synteny

Wasps are my way into the genomics of social evolution: what changes in a genome between simple and complex societies, and how the structure of the genome itself, the order and arrangement of genes, or synteny — shifts between species.

This feeds Eco-Flow and is fed by it: synteny and comparete exist because these are the comparisons the work needs, and they’re built so anyone else can run them too.

Recent papers include the molecular basis of castes across vespid wasps (Nature Communications, 2023) and molecular signatures of plastic phenotypes in two species with simple societies (PNAS, 2015).

Publications

Updated automatically from Christopher Wyatt's ORCID record, last checked 28 Sep 2026.

  • Wyatt CD, Duarte Frutos F, Turner SD, De Araujo AC, Rashid U, Begley V, Sumner S (2026) nf-core/genomeqc: a best-practice pipeline for comparing genome and assembly quality. bioRxiv. doi: 10.64898/2026.08.20.745971
  • Bell EF, Wyatt CDR, Taylor D, Radford AN, Sumner S (2026) Limits to behavioural plasticity in tropical paper wasps. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2026.0252
  • Doyle TD, Jimenez‐Guri E, Barnes JC, Hannah C, Murray S, Wyatt CDR, Poole OM, Wotton KR (2025) Long‐range pollen transport across the North Sea: Insights from migratory hoverflies landing on a remote oil rig. Journal of Animal Ecology. doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.70126
  • Sampaio Gonçalves D, Dulac L, Ritschka B, Rhinn M, Klein A, Wyatt CD, Irimia M, Keyes WM (2025) Senescent cells exhibit features of developmental signaling centres. bioRxiv. doi: 10.1101/2025.10.30.685565
  • Toth AL, Wyatt CDR, Masonbrink RE, Geist KS, Fortune R, Scott SB, Favreau E, Rehan SM, Sumner S, Gardiner MM, Sivakoff FS (2024) New genomic resources inform transcriptomic responses to heavy metal toxins in the common Eastern bumble bee Bombus impatiens. BMC Genomics. doi: 10.1186/s12864-024-11040-4
  • Di Matteo A, Belloni E, Pradella D, Chiaravalli AM, Pini GM, Bugatti M, Alfieri R, Barzan C, Franganillo Tena E, Bione S, Terenzani E, Sessa F, Wyatt CDR, Vermi W, Ghigna C (2023) Alternative Splicing Changes Promoted by NOVA2 Upregulation in Endothelial Cells and Relevance for Gastric Cancer. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. doi: 10.3390/ijms24098102
  • Favreau E, Cini A, Taylor D, Câmara Ferreira F, Bentley MA, Cappa F, Cervo R, Privman E, Schneider J, Thiéry D, Mashoodh R, Wyatt CDR, Brown RL, Bodrug-Schepers A, Stralis-Pavese N, Dohm JC, Mead D, Himmelbauer H, Guigo R, Sumner S (2023) Putting hornets on the genomic map. Scientific Reports. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-31932-x
  • Wyatt CDR, Bentley MA, Taylor D, Favreau E, Brock RE, Taylor BA, Bell E, Leadbeater E, Sumner S (2023) Social complexity, life-history and lineage influence the molecular basis of castes in vespid wasps. Nature Communications. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-36456-6
  • Favreau E, Geist KS, Wyatt CDR, Toth AL, Sumner S, Rehan SM (2023) Co-expression Gene Networks and Machine-learning Algorithms Unveil a Core Genetic Toolkit for Reproductive Division of Labour in Rudimentary Insect Societies. Genome Biology and Evolution. doi: 10.1093/gbe/evac174
  • Plana-Carmona M, Stik G, Bulteau R, Segura-Morales C, Alcázar N, Wyatt CD, Klonizakis A, de Andrés-Aguayo L, Gasnier M, Tian TV, Torcal Garcia G, Vila-Casadesús M, Plachta N, Serrano M, Francesconi M, Graf T (2022) The trophectoderm acts as a niche for the inner cell mass through C/EBPα-regulated IL-6 signaling. Stem Cell Reports. doi: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2022.07.009
  • Wyatt CDR, Pernaute B, Gohr A, Miret-Cuesta M, Goyeneche L, Rovira Q, Salzer MC, Boke E, Bogdanovic O, Bonnal S, Irimia M (2022) A developmentally programmed splicing failure contributes to DNA damage response attenuation during mammalian zygotic genome activation. Science Advances. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abn4935
  • Hoijman E, Häkkinen HM, Tolosa-Ramon Q, Jiménez-Delgado S, Wyatt C, Miret-Cuesta M, Irimia M, Callan-Jones A, Wieser S, Ruprecht V (2021) Cooperative epithelial phagocytosis enables error correction in the early embryo. Nature. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03200-3
  • Taylor BA, Cini A, Wyatt CDR, Reuter M, Sumner S (2021) The molecular basis of socially mediated phenotypic plasticity in a eusocial paper wasp. Nature Communications. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-21095-6
  • Wyatt CDR, Bentley M, Taylor D, Brock RE, Taylor BA, Bell E, Leadbeater E, Sumner S (2020) Genetic toolkit for sociality predicts castes across the spectrum of social complexity in wasps. bioRxiv. doi: 10.1101/2020.12.08.407056
  • Almudi I, Vizueta J, Wyatt CDR, de Mendoza A, Marlétaz F, Firbas PN, Feuda R, Masiero G, Medina P, Alcaina-Caro A, Cruz F, Gómez-Garrido J, Gut M, Alioto TS, Vargas-Chavez C, Davie K, Misof B, González J, Aerts S, Lister R, Paps J, Rozas J, Sánchez-Gracia A, Irimia M, Maeso I, Casares F (2020) Genomic adaptations to aquatic and aerial life in mayflies and the origin of insect wings. Nature Communications. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-16284-8
  • Belloni E, Di Matteo A, Pradella D, Vacca M, Wyatt CDR, Alfieri R, Maffia A, Sabbioneda S, Ghigna C (2019) Gene Expression Profiles Controlled by the Alternative Splicing Factor Nova2 in Endothelial Cells. Cells. doi: 10.3390/cells8121498
  • Southon RJ, Bell EF, Graystock P, Wyatt CDR, Radford AN, Sumner S (2019) High indirect fitness benefits for helpers across the nesting cycle in the tropical paper waspPolistes canadensis. Molecular Ecology. doi: 10.1111/mec.15137
  • Marlétaz F, Firbas PN, Maeso I, Tena JJ, Bogdanovic O, Perry M, Wyatt CDR, de la Calle-Mustienes E, Bertrand S, Burguera D, Acemel RD, van Heeringen SJ, Naranjo S, Herrera-Ubeda C, Skvortsova K, Jimenez-Gancedo S, Aldea D, Marquez Y, Buono L, Kozmikova I, Permanyer J, Louis A, Albuixech-Crespo B, Le Petillon Y, Leon A, Subirana L, Balwierz PJ, Duckett PE, Farahani E, Aury JM, Mangenot S, Wincker P, Albalat R, Benito-Gutiérrez È, Cañestro C, Castro F, D’Aniello S, Ferrier DEK, Huang S, Laudet V, Marais GAB, Pontarotti P, Schubert M, Seitz H, Somorjai I, Takahashi T, Mirabeau O, Xu A, Yu JK, Carninci P, Martinez-Morales JR, Crollius HR, Kozmik Z, Weirauch MT, Garcia-Fernàndez J, Lister R, Lenhard B, Holland PWH, Escriva H, Gómez-Skarmeta JL, Irimia M (2018) Amphioxus functional genomics and the origins of vertebrate gene regulation. Nature. doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0734-6
  • Kennedy P, Baron G, Qiu B, Freitak D, Helanterä H, Hunt ER, Manfredini F, O’Shea-Wheller T, Patalano S, Pull CD, Sasaki T, Taylor D, Wyatt CD, Sumner S (2017) Deconstructing Superorganisms and Societies to Address Big Questions in Biology. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2017.08.004
  • Maeso I, Dunwell TL, Wyatt CDR, Marlétaz F, Vető B, Bernal JA, Quah S, Irimia M, Holland PWH (2016) Evolutionary origin and functional divergence of totipotent cell homeobox genes in eutherian mammals. BMC Biology. doi: 10.1186/s12915-016-0267-0
  • Guillemin ML, Contreras-Porcia L, Ramírez ME, Macaya EC, Contador CB, Woods H, Wyatt C, Brodie J (2016) The bladed Bangiales (Rhodophyta) of the South Eastern Pacific: Molecular species delimitation reveals extensive diversity. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2015.09.027
  • Patalano S, Vlasova A, Wyatt C, Ewels P, Camara F, Ferreira PG, Asher CL, Jurkowski TP, Segonds-Pichon A, Bachman M, González-Navarrete I, Minoche AE, Krueger F, Lowy E, Marcet-Houben M, Rodriguez-Ales JL, Nascimento FS, Balasubramanian S, Gabaldon T, Tarver JE, Andrews S, Himmelbauer H, Hughes WOH, Guigó R, Reik W, Sumner S (2015) Molecular signatures of plastic phenotypes in two eusocial insect species with simple societies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1515937112
  • Giampietro C, Deflorian G, Gallo S, Di Matteo A, Pradella D, Bonomi S, Belloni E, Nyqvist D, Quaranta V, Confalonieri S, Bertalot G, Orsenigo F, Pisati F, Ferrero E, Biamonti G, Fredrickx E, Taveggia C, Wyatt CDR, Irimia M, Di Fiore PP, Blencowe BJ, Dejana E, Ghigna C (2015) The alternative splicing factor Nova2 regulates vascular development and lumen formation. Nature Communications. doi: 10.1038/ncomms9479