The outcome of the 2nd EvoMG Joint PhD Call was announced today. Pairs of labs participating on the EvoMG Program were invited to propose co-supervised PhD projects on topics directly related to evolutionary medical genomics. The main evaluation criteria were the excellence and originality of the proposal, the fit within evolutionary medical genomics research, and the synergy between the two labs.

Four proposals were submitted. They were assessed by an ad hoc Evaluation Committee: Mireia Valles-Colomer (chair, UPF-MELIS and EvoMG Program), Oscar Lao (IBE-CSIC and EvoMG Program) and Mario Caceres (Hospital del Mar Research Institute).

The top ranked project, which will receive a PhD fellowship from the EvoMG Program, was:

"Comparative transcriptomics of CHIKV infection of humans and mosquito cells", co-supervised by Juana Díez and Manuel Irimia. The project will compare the transcriptomic and translatomic responses of human and mosquito cells upon viral infection to identify common molecular pathways as well as distinct ones that could be behind the differences in virulence in the two species.