Author Archives: Alex Twyford

About Alex Twyford

Alex Twyford is a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, and a Research Associate at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. He studies the ecology and evolution of plants. Twitter @alex_twyford.

Chromosomal inversions and the maintenance of species barriers

Posted on 29 May, 2018 by Alex Twyford

Chromosomal inversions have long fascinated evolutionary biologists for their role in adaptation and speciation. These structural variants are abundant in natural populations and can have diverse evolutionary consequences. They can cause reproductive isolation through hybrid sterility or protect sets of … Continue reading →

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DNA extraction for PacBio sequencing

Posted on 26 April, 2018 by Alex Twyford

PacBio is emerging as the favoured sequencing approach for assembling high-quality reference genomes. But the big issue with PacBio sequencing is that to get long sequence reads you need to start with high molecular weight DNA. For my first foray … Continue reading →

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Sequencing round-up 2018

Posted on 31 March, 2018 by Alex Twyford

The deluge of new sequencing approaches continues at a pace. It seems that you turn your back for five minutes and there’s a shiny new sequencing platform promising to deliver more for less. What is the current state of play … Continue reading →

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Posted in genomics, next generation sequencing | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment