One central concept in the OMA project and other work we do to infer relationships between genes is that of Hierarchical Orthologous Groups, or “HOGs” for the initiated.

We’ve written several papers on aspects pertaining to HOGs—how to infer them, how to evaluate them, them being increasingly adopted by orthology resources, etc.—but there is still a great deal of confusion as to what HOGs are and why they matter.

Natasha Glover, talented postdoc in the lab, has produced a brief video to introduce HOGs and convey why we are mad about them!

References

Altenhoff, A., Gil, M., Gonnet, G., & Dessimoz, C. (2013). Inferring Hierarchical Orthologous Groups from Orthologous Gene Pairs PLoS ONE, 8 (1) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0053786

Boeckmann, B., Robinson-Rechavi, M., Xenarios, I., & Dessimoz, C. (2011). Conceptual framework and pilot study to benchmark phylogenomic databases based on reference gene trees Briefings in Bioinformatics, 12 (5), 423-435 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbr034

Sonnhammer, E., Gabaldon, T., Sousa da Silva, A., Martin, M., Robinson-Rechavi, M., Boeckmann, B., Thomas, P., Dessimoz, C., & , . (2014). Big data and other challenges in the quest for orthologs Bioinformatics, 30 (21), 2993-2998 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btu492

Life as an academic is varied and busy. Students sometimes believe that all we do is teach. In fact, we do quite a few other things. Here’s my 2016 in numbers.

• number of papers published: 10
• number of paper rejections: 7
• number of books edited: 1
• number of grant proposals submitted: 8
• number of research contracts negotiated with the industry: 2
• number of blog posts: 5
• number of tweets: 474 (66% were retweets)
• number of YouTube videos: 1
• number of papers reviewed: 24
• number of papers edited: 3
• number of grants reviewed: 3
• number of PhD theses examined: 2
• number of emails received (excluding spam and mailing-lists): 12,695
• number of emails written: 4,377 (!)
• number of minutes videoconferencing on GoToMeeting: 13,236 (!!)
• number of Geneva-London-Geneva roundtrips: 12
• number of meetings with >50 attendees co-organised: 6
• number of seminars hosted: 4
• number of conferences attended: 3
• number of talks given: 11
• number of semester-long courses organised: 2
• number of hours lectured: 32
• number of 2000-word student papers marked: 47
• number of summer students supervised: 4
• number of overnight retreats attended: 4
• number of work Christmas dinners attended: 3
• number of annual reports written: 3 (this does not count)
• number of Tête de Moine eaten at lab celebrations: 4
• number of times moved home: 0 (noteworthy since we moved 5 times in the preceding 5 years…)

I wish you, Dear Reader, all the best in 2017!