The LabEx MitoCross welcomes a new team.

The team "Intraspecific variation and genome evolution", leaded by Prof. Joseph Schacherer is the seventh team of MitoCross. This team, being a part of the partner 1 (UMR 7156 GMGM), have recently been awarded by the ERC consolidator grant and its recent findings published in Nature. The team of Prof. Schacherer aims to elucidate the causes of the awesome phenotypic diversity observed in natural populations, which is a major challenge in biology. To date quantitative genetics has mainly been focused on the identification of the nuclear determinants of complex trait, leaving mitochondrial DNA aside. The mitochondrial genome has been considered to study specific mitochondrial traits, but its contribution to common complex traits has been largely ignored. The team aims to reach a profound comprehension of the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying the nuclear-mitochondrial interactions. To attain this goal, the projects of the team are at the interface between genetics, genomics and computational biology.