Dr Gary Barker

Summary

My research interests involve the application of bioinformatics to environmental genomics and crop Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) datasets.  My interest in environmental genomics dates back to my PhD and postdoctoral work on gene flow in algae and cyanobacteria. In recent years I worked in collaboration with Keith Edwards group at Bristol to generate useful SNP markers for hexaploid bread wheat.  I developed pipelines to mine inter-varietal SNPs from exome-capture sequence data and we went on to develop two commercial genotyping arrays from the ~1 million putative SNPs we found.  These arrays are now used extensively by UK wheat breeders to rapidly screen new breeding lines at an early stage for markers linked to useful traits such as disease resistance and their impact has been to drastically reduce the time taken to naturally breed new wheat varieties. The advent of Next Generation Sequencing technology for DNA has made population-scale analysis of microbial communities tractable in recent years, which has enabled me to re-visit this area of my research.  I currently have an EU-funded project to investigate micro-fouling of marine surfaces in which we are using high throughput sequencing for the identification of both taxa and genes associated with different anti-fouling compounds. I am also collaborating on projects using the similar techniques to study the microbial colonisation of retreating glacial fore-fields (in collaboration with Alex Anesio) and of humans who have received a nasal flu vaccine (in collaboration with Adam Finn).  I am also working with Juliet Brodie at the Natural History Museum and Chris Yesson at the Institute of Zoology to develop genotyping by sequencing and novel sonar-based survey methods for UK kelps. I currently have a PhD vacancy funded by the EU to develop bioinformatics approaches to mine novel genes from cold environments. 

Keywords

• Cereal Genomics
• Single Nucleotide Polymorphism
• metagenomics

Memberships

Organisations

School of Biological Sciences

Other sites

• Brissynbio

Research groups

• Plant and Agricultural Sciences
• Ecology and Environmental Change

Labs

• Cereal Genomics

Recent publications

• Banks, AM, Aminuddin, F, Williams, K, Batstone, T, Barker, GL, Foster, GD & Bailey, AM, 2019, ‘Genome Sequence of Lecanicillium fungicola 150-1, the Causal Agent of Dry Bubble Disease’. Microbiology Resource Announcements, vol 8.
• Przewieslik-Allen, AM, Burridge, AJ, Wilkinson, PA, Winfield, MO, Shaw, DS, McAusland, L, King, J, King, IP, Edwards, KJ & Barker, GL, 2019, ‘Developing a high-throughput SNP-based marker system to facilitate the introgression of traits from Aegilops species into bread wheat (Triticum aestivum)’. Frontiers in Plant Science, vol 9.
• Nash, MV, Anesio, AM, Barker, G, Tranter, M, Varliero, G, Eloe-Fadrosh, EA, Nielsen, T, Turpin-Jelfs, T, Benning, LG & Sánchez-Baracaldo, P, 2018, ‘Metagenomic insights into diazotrophic communities across Arctic glacier forefields’. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, vol 94.
• Burridge, A, Wilkinson, P, Winfield, M, Barker, G, Przewieslik-Allen, S, Coghill, J, Waterfall, C & Edwards, K, 2018, ‘Conversion of array-based single nucleotide polymorphic markers for use in targeted genotyping by sequencing in hexaploid wheat (Triticum aestivum)’. Plant Biotechnology Journal, vol 16., pp. 867-876
• Winfield, M, Downer, A, Longyear, J, Dale, M & Barker, G, 2018, ‘Comparative study of biofilm formation on biocidal antifouling and fouling-release coatings using next-generation DNA sequencing’. Biofouling, vol 34., pp. 464-477
• Winfield, MO, Allen, AM, Wilkinson, PA, Burridge, AJ, Barker, GL, Coghill, J, Waterfall, C, Wingen, LU, Griffiths, S & Edwards, KJ, 2017, ‘High-density genotyping of the A.E. Watkins Collection of hexaploid landraces identifies a large molecular diversity compared to elite bread wheat’. Plant Biotechnology Journal.
• Allen, AM, Winfield, MO, Burridge, AJ, Downie, RC, Benbow, HL, Barker, GLA, Wilkinson, PA, Coghill, JA, Waterfall, CM, Davassi, A, Scopes, G, Pirani, A, Webster, T, Brew, F, Bloor, C, Griffiths, S, Bentley, A, Alda, M, Jack, P, Phillips, AL & Edwards, KJ, 2017, ‘Characterisation of a Wheat Breeders’ Array suitable for high throughput SNP genotyping of global accessions of hexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivium)’. Plant Biotechnology Journal, vol 15., pp. 390?401
• Carroll, MW, Haldenby, S, Rickett, NY, Pályi, B, Garcia-Dorival, I, Liu, X, Barker, G, Bore, JA, Koundouno, FR, Williamson, ED, Laws, TR, Kerber, R, Sissoko, D, Magyar, N, Di Caro, A, Biava, M, Fletcher, TE, Sprecher, A, Ng, LFP, Rénia, L, Magassouba, N, Günther, S, Wölfel, R, Stoecker, K, Matthews, DA & Hiscox, JA, 2017, ‘Deep sequencing of RNA from blood and oral swab samples reveals the presence of nucleic acid from a number of pathogens in patients with acute Ebola virus disease and is consistent with bacterial translocation across the gut’. mSphere, vol 2.
• Burridge, AJ, Winfield, MO, Allen, AM, Wilkinson, PA, Barker, GL, Coghill, J, Waterfall, C & Edwards, KJ, 2017, ‘High-Density SNP Genotyping Array for Hexaploid Wheat and Its Relatives’. in: Prem Bhalla, Mohan Singh (eds) Wheat Biotechnology: Methods and Protocols. Humana Press, pp. 293-306
• Banks, AM, Barker, GL, Bailey, AM & Foster, GD, 2017, ‘Draft Genome Sequence of the Coprinoid Mushroom Coprinopsis strossmayeri’. Genome Announcements, vol 5.

View complete publications list in the University of Bristol publications system