Research in my lab focuses on the ecology and evolutionary biology of haemosporidian parasites and their hosts. This entails applying phylogenetic and molecular clock methods to understand host switches and the radiation of major haemosporidian groups in their vertebrate hosts, focusing on lizard, avian, and mammalian parasites. This research provides the evolutionary blueprint to characterize putative molecular adaptations and will allow us to understand the evolution of gene-encoding proteins that are considered vaccine candidates. The parasite polymorphisms and their geographic differentiation are also issues of great basic interest because they provide information about the parasite's demographic history and/or phylogeography. In addition, I am also interested in the rate and mode of evolution of the mitochondrial genome, especially in Apicomplexa parasites and their avian hosts, and the origin and evolution of birds. To these ends, I am coordinating the Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) laboratory at iGEM, a collabo ration supporting all iGEM labs in preparing libraries for genomic analyses.

More information on the Pacheco Laboratory is available at www.researchgate.net/profile/M-Pacheco-3