Abbas Bukhari
Abbas Bukhari completed his BS in Bioinformatics from the COMSATS University of Pakistan in 2009 and then came to the University of Illinois in 2010. He completed both Masters and Ph.D. degrees in bioinformatics in 2012 and 2018, respectively. After finishing his doctorate, he did his first postdoc with his Ph.D. advisor Prof. Alison Bell. He joined the IGB Gene Networks in Neural & Developmental Plasticity (GNDP) theme in February 2020.
Abbas is a computational biologist interested in the dynamic genome that responds to an animal's social environment and its evolution. He uses systems biology, and comparative genomics approaches to study the relationships between genes and behavior using both within-species (comparing different behaviors) and across species (comparing the same behavior in other species) comparisons. His notable studies include understanding the neurogenomic basis of aggressive and affiliative social interactions in male sticklebacks. As an IGB fellow, he is expanding on the cross-species aspects. He is interested in comparing the dynamic neuro-genome that responds to animals' social environment across distant species. He is currently working on comparing neurogenomic response to parental care in species spanning both vertebrates and invertebrates groups such as mammals (mouse, prairie voles), birds (rock doves), reptiles (poison frogs), fishes (sticklebacks), and insects (burying beetles and honey bees). This analysis can help understand the rules of natural selection and adaptation in the species that converge on the related behavioral traits due to similar ecological and social challenges.
