Andrew J. Roger

Andrew J. Roger

Andrew J. Roger is a Canadian-Australian molecular biologist and evolutionary bioinformatician. He is currently a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Dalhousie University and the director of the inter-departmental Centre for Comparative Genomics and Evolutionary Bioinformatics (CGEB).^[1] Roger received his B.Sc from the University of British Columbia and his PhD from Dalhousie University. He is a senior fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research^[2] in the Integrated Microbial Biodiversity Program^[3] since 2007. Roger was also elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2012^[4] for his work on eukaryotic superkingdoms, notably for finding phylogenomic evidence for Excavata in collaboration with Alastair Simpson.^[5]

A former student of Ford Doolittle, Roger's research focuses on the 'deep' Tree of Life, especially determining the super-kingdom-level relationships amongst eukaryotes and clarifying the nature of the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA).^[6] Using phylogenomic approaches Roger's group elucidates the patterns and process of genome evolution in eukaryotic microbes. He is particularly interested in the evolutionary origin of mitochondria, hydrogenosomes, and mitosomes,^[7][8][9] and how anaerobic parasites evolved from free-living ancestors.

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