Sequence to Sequence: Rigorous Statistical and Mathematical Analysis of Biological Sequence Data

How closely related are two species? How do genes evolve new functions? How different are bovine, human and kangaroo milk genes? How quickly does the genome of a RNA virus mutate? To answer such questions it is crucial that we not only have access to reliable genomic data but also continue to refine the statistical and mathematical methods with which we assess the similarities and differences between biological sequences. As part of an international focus on comparative genomics, the assembly of various whole genomes is now taking place in Australia and world-wide. This project further develops rigorous statistical and mathematical tools to analyse these exciting new data.