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MathBio Seminar

Monday, September 26, 2011 - 12:10pm

Sebastien Roch

UCLA dept. of math

Location

University of Pennsylvania

Levine 315

Much progress has been made in the design and analysis of efficient algorithms for assembling the Tree of Life from present-day molecular sequences. In the first half of the talk, I will briefly review some of the mathematical techniques that have led to our current understanding of large-scale tree-building algorithms. Prior rigorous results have typically relied on models of molecula r evolution that are too simplistic. In the second half, I will discuss recent w ork on the theoretical analysis of more realistic settings, including (time perm itting) mutation rate variation across sites, insertion-deletion events and inco mplete lineage sorting.