Yoshiyuki SUZUKI

	Yoshiyuki SUZUKI Professor, M.D., Ph.D.
	E-mail: yossuzuk TEL: +81-52-872-5821 FAX: Not available Research Course: Biological Science
	URL　http://www.nsc.nagoya-cu.ac.jp/~yossuzuk/
Specialties	Information Biology, Molecular Evolution, Population Genetics, Virology
Keywords	natural selection, neutral evolution
Current Research	(1) Study of virus evolution: Viruses are not included in the Tree of Life, which is composed of archaebacteria, eubacteria, and eukaryotes. When and how did viruses emerge? How did they evolve? What is the effective strategy for prophylaxis and treatment against diseases caused by rapidly evolving viruses? To solve these problems, we are studying molecular evolution of viruses. (2) Development of methods for detecting natural selection: Did evolution occur through accumulation of neutral or nearly neutral mutations or through accumulation of advantageous mutations? To solve this problem, we are analyzing biological data, such as genomic sequences, through developing methods for detecting natural selection. (3) Evolutionary study of disease-associated genes: Why do we age, get sick, and eventually die? Why are some organisms immortal, while others are not? To solve these problems, we will conduct evolutionary study of aging- and disease-associated genes using biological data, such as expression profiles and interaction networks.
Selected Papers	A method for detecting positive selection at single amino acid sites. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 1999, 16:1315-1328. Overcredibility of molecular phylogenies obtained by Bayesian phylogenetics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2002, 99:16138-16143. Three-dimensional window analysis for detecting positive selection at structural regions of proteins. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2004, 21:2352-2359. Natural selection on the influenza virus genome. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2006, 23:1902-1911. Methods for incorporating the hypermutability of CpG dinucleotides in detecting natural selection operating at the amino acid sequence level. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2009, 26:2275-2284.