Brian Oliver, Ph.D.


LCDB
DEVELOPMENTAL GENOMICS SECTION
NIDDK, National Institutes of Health
Building 50 , Room 3339
50 South Dr.
Bethesda, MD 20892
Tel: 301-496-5494
Fax: 301-496-5239
Email: oliver@helix.nih.gov

Research Website:


Education / Previous Training and Experience:
Brian Oliver received his Ph.D. from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1988 where he worked in the Anthony Mahowald laboratory on oogenesis. He did postdoctoral work on sex determination at Stanford University in the laboratory of Bruce Baker. He took a group leader position at the University of Marseille in 1991 where he focused on germline sex determination. He joined the Laboratory of Cellular and Developmental Biology of NIDDK in 1995, where he is now chief of the section of Developmental Genomics.


Research Statement:

Subtle perturbations in networks are likely to cause much of inherited disease susceptibility, but understanding how complex genotypes and environmental interactions result in disease will require experimental systems biology in model organisms. Predictive models for gene and pathway function will be important for diagnosis and ultimately intervention, fulfilling the promise of the human genome project.

The humble fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is an important model system, boasting facile genetics, complex organ systems, complex behaviors and a sequenced genome. Fruit flies are easy to propagate and require little lab space. Our long-term goal is to develop predictive models of gene function based on gene network analysis in Fruit flies. Intermediate problems within the community of scientists working on Fruit flies are identifying all genes, mRNA isoforms and regulatory elements encoded in the genome, determining genetic function genome-wide, and developing connectivity maps.

Our approach relies on a combination of high-throughput techniques to profile biological processes such as expression, promoter occupancy, and chromatin status in conjunction with computational analysis of genomic sequence. Along the way we are addressing a number of interesting questions highly amenable to genome wide analysis. For example, lipid storage and the transcriptional response to altered gene copy number.


Selected Publications:

Bronstein, R., Levkovitz, L., Yosef, N., Ruppin, E., Sharan, R., Westphal, H., Oliver, B., and Segal, D. (2010). Transcriptional regulation by CHIP/LDB complexes. PLoS Genet.6:e1001063. [Full Text/Abstract]

Parisi, M.J., Gupta, V., Sturgill, D., Warren, J.T., Malone, J.H., Zhang, Y., Gilbert, L.I., and Oliver, B. (2010). Germline-dependent gene expression in distant non-gonadal somatic tissues of Drosophila.  BMC Genomics. 11:346. [Full Text/Abstract]

Zhang, Y., Malone, J.H., Powell, S.K., Periwal, V., Spana, E., MacAlpine, D.M., and Oliver, B. (2010). Gene expression in aneuploid  Drosophila S2 cells. PLoS Biol. 8:e1000320. [Full Text/Abstract]

Beller, M., Sztalryd, C., Southall, N., Bell, M., Jäckle, H., Auld, D.S., and Oliver, B. (2008). COPI complex is a regulator of lipid homeostasis. PLoS Biol. 6:e292. [Full Text/Abstract]Exit Disclaimer

Zhang, Y., Sturgill, D., Parisi, M., Kumar, S., Oliver, B. (2007). Constraint and turnover in sex-biased gene expression in the genus Drosophila. Nature(450): 233-7. [Full Text/Abstract]

Sturgill, D., Zhang, Y., Parisi, M., Oliver, B. (2007). Demasculinization of X chromosomes in the Drosophila genus. Nature(450): 238-41. [Full Text/Abstract]

Drosophila 12 Genomes Consortium (2007).  Evolution of genes and genomes on the Drosophila phylogeny. Nature(450): 203-218 [Full Text/Abstract]

Hempel, L.U., Oliver, B. (2007). Sex-specific Doublesex[M] expression in subsets of Drosophila somatic gonad cells. BMC Dev Biol(7): 113. [Full Text/Abstract]

FitzGerald, P.C., Sturgill, D., Shyakhtenko, A., Oliver, B., Vinson C. (2006).  Comparative genomics of Drosophila and human core promoters Genome Biology(7): R53. [Full Text/Abstract]Exit Disclaimer

Gupta, V., Parisi, M., Sturgill, D., Nuttall, R., Doctolero, M., Dudko, O.K., Malley, J.D., Eastman, P.S., Oliver, B. (2006). Global analysis of X-chromosome dosage compensation. J Biol(5): 3. [Full Text/Abstract]



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Page last updated: September 08, 2010

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