Dr. Gary Barker

group: Plant and Pathogen Biology
lab: Cereal Genomics

Bioinformatics

My main research interest is Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) discovery and gene expression analysis in hexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivum). This work primarily uses Illumina Next Generation Sequence data from normalised cDNA libraries, but as part of the UK wheat genome sequencing consortium we are currently using ABI SOLiD whole genome shotgun sequence data.
The Draft wheat genome sequence reads, representing 5x coverage on the Roche 454 platform are available from the cerealsdb link below. The data can also be BLAST searched from cerealsdb.
Funded by a BBSRC BBR program I am responsible for bringing UK wheat genomics data together under the MONOGRAM ubrella.
I'm curently collaborating with Donal O'Sullivan at NIAB on the discovery of genes involved in Ergot resistance in wheat.
Other interests include metagenomics, with a particular emphasis on Glacial ecosystems in collaboration with Alex Magno Anesio in the School of Geographical Science.

Further information can be found on the cerealsDB home page and wheatbp.