Joshua B. Plotkin
Assistant Professor, Depts of Biology (SAS), and Computer and Information Science (SEAS)

Microbiology, Virology and Parasitology Program

Address

219 Carolyn Lynch Laboratories
Department of Biology
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6076

Office tel.: 215-898-7121

Fax: 215-898-8780
E-mail: jplotkinATsasDOTupennDOTedu

Link(s)

Dr. Plotkin's Biology web page

Education

Harvard College: AB (Mathematics), 1999.

Princeton University: PhD (Applied Mathematics), 2004.

Research Interests

• mathematical biology, population genetics, molecular evolution.

Key words: molecular evolution, population genetics, mathematical biology.

Search PubMed for articles

Description of Research

I use mathematics and computation to study questions in evolutionary biology. My research is primarily concerned with the origin and maintenance of genetic variation within populations. Related interests include the evolution of robustness and adaptability, the evolutionary ecology of viral populations, somatic evolution, and the evolution of social norms.

Recent Publications

Plotkin JB, Fraser HB. Assessing the determinants of evolutionary rates in the presence of noise. Molecular Biology and Evolution 24: 1113-1121 (2007).

Plotkin JB, Dushoff J, Desai MM, Fraser HB. Codon usage and selection on proteins. Journal of Molecular Evolution 63: 635-553 (2006).

Plotkin JB, Dushoff J, Fraser HB. Detecting selection using a single genome sequence of M. tuberculosis and P. falciparum. Nature 428: 942-945 (2004).

Plotkin JB, Robins H, Levine A. Tissue-specific codon usage and the expression of human genes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 101: 12588-12591 (2004).

Plotkin JB, Dushoff J. Codon bias and frequency-dependent selection on the hemagglutinin epitopes of Influenza A virus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100: 7152-7157 (2003).

Plotkin JB, Dushoff J, Levin SA. Hemagglutinin sequence clusters and the antigenic evolution of Influenza A virus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 99: 6263-6268 (2002).

Lab

Rotation Projects

Lab personnel: