Expanding our knowledge of genetic diversity of species across the Tree of Life can significantly improve efforts to support impacted ecosystems and understand the underlying mechanisms of species adaptation to changing environments.
Throughout her career Iliana has been working on the application of high-throughput sequencing data for analysis of biodiversity from the genomic to the ecosystem level. In her research she uses a variety of data types, from single marker metabarcoding, to metagenomics, and whole genome data to investigate how species diversity and distributions change, and how organisms adapt to environmental change.
Iliana’s research group at Senckenberg Research Institute & Natural History Museum in Frankfurt uses molecular approaches to study the diversity and evolution of animal taxa, with a particular interest in aquatic and semi-aquatic groups. Extreme environments such as the polar regions, and deep sea and subterranean habitats present excellent grounds for the study of eco-evolutionary interactions and mechanisms of environmental adaptation. Iliana’s team also work on development of methodologies for environmental monitoring, such as for novel applications of eDNA metabarcoding, metagenomics, and reference genome sequencing and comparative analysis. The team uses bioinformatics for analysis of large datasets and establishment of pipelines for HTS data processing.
For more information on projects and open positions visit
T. Voria cave
Positions
2023 – present Research Group Leader, Senckenberg Research Institute & LOEWE Center for Translational Biodiversity Genomics (TBG), Frankfurt, Germany
2021 – 2023 Postdoctoral Fellow, Naturalis Biodiversity Centre, Leiden, Netherlands
2020 – 2021 Postdoctoral Research Officer, University of Cambridge, Department of Genetics, UK
2017 – 2020 Postdoctoral Fellow & Lab Manager, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK
2016 – 2017 Visiting Scientist, Bangor University, Molecular Ecology and Fisheries Genetics, UK
2011-2016 PhD, Bangor University, Molecular Ecology and Fisheries Genetics, UK
Research
Lab
Publications
Iliana Bista 