Biochemical Journal Poster Prize winner

Michael Dacre

Michael Dacre's career began unusually, with a bachelor's degree in the applied field of forensic science. He got his BSc in Forensic Science with Honors from the University of Central Lancashire in 2006. Following this, he spent some time in northern Kenya on a palaeoanthropological dig to explore recent hominin evolution. He then became interested in deeper evolutionary time, and decided to explore this from a molecular biology standpoint, rather than through paleontology. He worked briefly with an evolution of development group at the University of Manchester before travelling to California, where he now works with Gerard Manning's group at the Salk Institute studying the eukaryotic genome, and in particular the eukaryotic kinome (total kinase complement). His research primarily involves the comparative analysis of multiple species to learn more about the evolution of, and the evolutionary constraints on, the kinome. He is focusing on the evolution of the vertebrate kinome through a comparison of five bony fish and additionally on the emergence of the animal kinome through a comparative analysis of the genomes of basal metazoans and their close unicellular relatives. More information on this work can be found at kinase.com.