Byrappa Venkatesh obtained his BSc and MSc with Distinction from the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, India and PhD from the National University of Singapore. He did his postdoctoral studies in Dr Sydney Brenner’s Molecular Genetics Unit at the Medical Research Council, Cambridge, UK and returned to Singapore in 1992 to set up the Molecular Genetics Lab. Prof. Venkatesh was honoured with Singapore’s “National Science Award” in 2004 for his work on the fugu genome. He recently identified the elephant shark as a model cartilaginous fish genome and initiated the Elephant Shark Genome Project.

Comparative genomics is a powerful strategy for discovering novel genes and gene regulatory regions in the human genome, and for understanding the structure and evolutionary history of the human genome. To facilitate comparative analysis of the human genome, several ‘model’ genomes have been identified and sequenced completely or are currently being sequenced. Our group is one of the pioneers in the field of comparative genomics. We identified the Japanese pufferfish (Fugu rubripes) as having the smallest vertebrate genome and proposed it as a model genome for discovering genes and gene regulatory regions in the human genome (Brenner et al., Nature, 366, 265-268, 1993). Our group subsequently set up the International Fugu Genome Consortium and played a key role in sequencing and annotating the fugu genome (Aparicio et al., Science 297, 1301-1310, 2002). The fugu genome sequence is currently being used as a reference genome by our group and several other groups for comparative analysis of human and other vertebrate genomes. The details of the Fugu Genome Project can be found at http://www.fugu-sg.org/. In our continued effort to identify and sequence model vertebrate genomes, we have recently characterized the elephant shark (Callorhinchus milii) genome and proposed it as a model cartilaginous fish genome (Venkatesh et al., Curr. Biol. 15, R82-R83,2005). Cartilaginous fishes are the oldest living phylogenetic group of jawed vertebrates (Gnathostomes). They diverged from the common ancestor of tetrapods and ray-finned fishes about 450 million years ago. Genome sequences of cartilaginous fishes provide insights into the ancestral state of jawed vertebrate genomes and help in reconstructing the evolutionary history of human and other bony vertebrate genomes. Recognizing the importance of the elephant shark genome, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA has approved funds for sequencing the whole genome of the elephant shark. The details of the Elephant shark Genome Project can be found at http://esharkgenome.imcb.a-star.edu.sg/. We are now exploring other potential model vertebrate genomes that can contribute to our understanding of human and other vertebrate genomes.

Besides the sequencing and annotation of vertebrate genomes, our research interests include whole genome comparisons aimed at studying the role of gene and genome duplications in the evolution of vertebrate genomes, evolution of gene structure (loss and gain of introns) and organization, discovering evolutionarily constrained regulatory elements in the human genome, and evolution of gene regulatory regions. The functions of putative regulatory elements identified in genome-wide comparisons and the consequences of evolutionary changes to the regulatory elements are tested in cell lines or in transgenic mice and zebrafish. The ultimate aim of such studies is to understand the molecular basis of cell- and tissue-specific expression and regulation of human genes.