Our research focuses on inter-primate comparisons at the sequence and expression levels with the long-term goals of identifying genomic regions of functional importance, understanding human gene regulatory processes and elucidating the genetic architecture of human-specific traits.

We are using a novel multi-species cDNA array to compare expression levels between different primate species without the confounding effect of sequence mismatches on hybridization intensity. Our goal is to identify genes whose regulation in humans has evolved under natural selection. Further experiments are aimed at understanding the mechanism of transcription regulation (cis or trans) for individual genes or genes involved in the same biochemical pathways.

A second project in the lab is the study of olfactory receptor (OR) genes. We are interested in the evolution of the OR gene family in humans, as well as in their expression and regulation, both in the olfactory epithelium as well as in other tissues (such as testis).

Selected Publications

Gilad, Y. The evoluation of the human olfactory receptor gene repertoire. New Encyclopedia of Neuroscience 2006, In Press.

Gilad, Y. and Borevitz, J. Using microarrays to study natural variation. Current Opinion in Genetics and Development 2006, In Press.

Gilad, Y., Oshlack, A. and Rifkin, S. Natural selection on gene expression. Trends in Genetics 2006, 8: 456-461.

Gilad, Y., Oshlack, A., Smyth, G. K., Speed, T. P. and White, P. K. Expression profiling in primates reveals a rapid evolution of human transcription factors. Nature 2006, 440: 242-245.

The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium. Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome Nature 2005, 437: 69-87.

Gilad, Y., Rifkin, A. S., Bertone, P., Gerstein, M. and White, P. K. Multi-species microarrays reveal the effect of sequence divergence on gene expression profiles. Genome Research. 2005, 15(5):674-680.

Gilad, Y., Man, O. and Glusman. G. A comparison of the human and chimpanzee olfactory receptor gene repertoires. Genome Research. 2005, 15: 224-230.

Gilad, Y., Wiebe, V., Przeworski, M., Lancet, D. and Pääbo, S. Loss of olfactory receptor genes coincides with the acquisition of full trichromatic vision in primates. PLoS Biology. 2004, 2(1): 120-125.

Man, O., Gilad, Y. and Lancet, D. Predicting the binding site of olfactory receptors by human-mouse comparisons. Protein Science. 2004, 13(1): 240-254.

Gilad, Y., Bustamante, C.D., Lancet, D. and Pääbo, S. Natural selection on the olfactory receptor gene family in humans and chimpanzees. Am. J. Hum. Gen. 2003, 73(3): 489-501.

Menashe, I. , Man, O., Lancet, D. and Gilad, Y. Different noses to different people. Nature Genetics. 2003, 34(2):143-144.

Gilad, Y., Man O., Pääbo, S, and Lancet D. Human specific loss of olfactory receptor genes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2003, 100(6): 3324-3327.

Gilad, Y. and Lancet D. Population differences in the human functional olfactory repertoire. Mol. Biol. and Evol. 2003, 20(3): 307-314.

Menashe, I. , Man, O., Lancet, D. and Gilad, Y. Population differences in haplotype structure within a human olfactory receptor gene cluster. Hum. Mol. Genet. 2002, 11(12): 1381-1390.

Gilad, Y., Rozenberg, S., Przeworski, M., Lancet, D. and Skorecki, K. Evidence for positive selection and  population structure at the human MAO-A gene. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2002, 99(2): 862-867.

Gilad, Y., Segré, D., Skorecki, K., Nachman, W. M., Lancet, D. and Sharon , D. Dichotomy of single- nucleotide polymorphism haplotypes in olfactory receptor genes and pseudogenes. Nature Genetics. 2000, 26(2): 221-224.