Robert Young
Academic Track Lecturer (Zhejiang)
- Usher Institute
- College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine
Contact details
Address
- Street
-
Usher Institute – University of Edinburgh
Old Medical School
Teviot Place - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH8 9AG
Background
2019 – Present: Academic Track Lecturer (Zhejiang)
2012 – 2019: Research Associate, MRC Human Genetics Unit, University of Edinburgh
2007 – 2011: DPhil, MRC Functional Genomics Unit, University of Oxford
Undergraduate teaching
I teach on various courses in the Integrated Biomedical Sciences and Biomedical Informatics programmes for undergraduate students at the Zhejiang University and Edinburgh University joint institute (ZJU-UoE Institute) in Haining, China. I am the course organiser for the first-year course 'Introduction to Biomedical Informatics'.
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Research summary
Mapping noncoding regulation in populations
Investigating how variation in complex traits and disease is driven by variation in the genomic content of noncoding, regulatory loci.
It is now almost routinely possible to identify genetic mutations across the human genome which drive disease or regulate complex human traits. However, the majority of these mutations are found in noncoding regions beyond the borders of known genes which makes their interpretation challenging. These noncoding regions encode a range of regulatory functions to control when and where genes are expressed.
Promoters are one type of such noncoding loci, responsible for regulating gene transcription initiation and which are significantly enriched for these phenotypically-associated variants. I have shown that these elements have undergone pervasive birth and death during mammalian evolution. Surprisingly, it is those promoters which are evolutionarily volatile which are most likely to harbour functionally important, regulatory variants within the human population.
My research studies the regulatory landscape of the human genome to discover how its rewiring drives variation across individuals, populations and species.
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The contribution of evolutionarily volatile promoters to molecular phenotypes and human trait variation
In:
Genome Biology
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Accepted/In press) -
Discovery of widespread transcription initiation at microsatellites predictable by sequence-based deep neural network
In:
Nature Communications, vol. 12
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23143-7
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Comparative transcriptomics of primary cells in vertebrates
In:
Genome Research
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/gr.255679.119
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Functional annotation of human long noncoding RNAs via molecular phenotyping
In:
Genome Research, vol. 30, pp. 1060-1072
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/gr.254219.119
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Identification of a localized Nonsense-Mediated Decay pathway at the Endoplasmic Reticulum
In:
Genes and Development, vol. 34, pp. 1075-1088
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/gad.338061.120
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Codon Usage and Splicing Jointly Influence mRNA Localization
(12 pages)
In:
Cell Systems, vol. 10, pp. 351-362.e8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2020.03.001
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Bidirectional transcription initiation marks accessible chromatin and is not specific to enhancers
(11 pages)
In:
Genome Biology, vol. 18
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-017-1379-8
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Aberrant ribonucleotide incorporation and multiple deletions in mitochondrial DNA of the murine MPV17 disease model
In:
Nucleic Acids Research
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkx1009
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
RNA MEETS DNA: The potential for gene expression to produce short RNA molecules capable of generating DNA mutation and driving genome evolution
In:
BioEssays
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.201700141
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Comment/debate (Published) -
Genetic variation and RNA structure regulate microRNA biogenesis
(12 pages)
In:
Nature Communications, vol. 8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15114
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)