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Biography:
Susanne Pfeifer is an Assistant Professor in the ASU School of Life Sciences, the Center for Evolution & Medicine, and the Center for Mechanisms of Evolution.
The Pfeifer lab is interested in studying genetic and evolutionary processes by combining large-scale, high-throughput sequence data analysis and model-based statistical inference with two main foci: (i) to elucidate the causes and consequences of mutation and recombination rate variation (with a focus on primates) and (ii) to understand how natural selection shapes patterns of genetic variation in populations (with particular interest in understanding the process of adaptation during rapid environmental change).
Education:
Susanne Pfeifer earned a B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the Max Plank Institute for Computer Science & Saarland University (Germany). She earned her D.Phil. in Statistics at the University of Oxford (UK) advised by Gil McVean, working on the statistical challenges involved in the estimation of variation in mutation and recombination rates from high throughput sequencing data, with direct applications to primate population genetics in a collaboration with Molly Przeworski’s Lab at the University of Chicago and Peter Donnelly’s Lab at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford. She completed her postdoctoral work as a Vienna International Postdoctoral Program fellow at the Center for Integrative Bioinformatics in Vienna (Austria) and worked as a research associate at the Swiss Institute for Technology (Switzerland).
Research Website URL:
Google Scholar URL:
Research Interests:
Research in the Pfeifer Lab is focused on analysing high-throughput sequencing data to learn about genetic and evolutionary processes. In particular, we focus on three topics within evolutionary genomics, also intersecting broadly with other related fields:
- Anthropological - mutation and recombination rate variation in primates
- Ecological - adaptation due to recent environmental change
- Clinical - virus evolution
Please refer to our lab webpage for additional details.
Research Group:
Publications:
Recent, representative publications:
(lab members indicated; * authors contributed equally)
- C.J. Versoza and S.P. Pfeifer. 2022. Computational prediction of bacteriophage host ranges. Microorganisms, 10(1):149.
- L.A. Bergeron, S. Besenbacher, T.N. Turner, C.J. Versoza, R.J. Wang, A.L. Price, E. Armstrong, M. Riera, J. Carlson, H. Chen, M.W. Hahn, K. Harris, A.S.L.N.M. Kleppe, E.H. López-Nandam, P. Moorjani, S.P. Pfeifer, G.P. Tiley, A.D. Yoder, G. Zhang and M.H. Schierup. 2022. The mutationathon highlights the importance of reaching standardization in estimates of pedigree-based germline mutation rates. eLife, 11:e73577.
- S.P. Pfeifer. 2021. Studying mutation rate evolution in primates – the effects of computational pipeline and parameter choices. GigaScience, 10(10):giab069.
- C.J. Versoza*, J.A. Rivera*, E.B. Rosenblum, C. Vital García, J. Jaime Zúñiga-Vega, D.K. Hews, S.P. Pfeifer. 2021. The recombination landscapes of spiny lizards (genus Sceloporus). G3 (Bethesda), jkab402.
- A. Crane*, C.J. Versoza*, T. Hua, R. Kapoor, L. Lloyd, R. Mehta, J. Menolascino, A. Morais, S. Munig, Z. Patel, D. Sackett, B. Schmit, M. Sy, S.P. Pfeifer. 2021. Phylogenetic relationships and codon usage bias amongst cluster K mycobacteriophages. G3 (Bethesda), 11(11):jkab291.
- M. Milhaven, E. Hastings, D. Brister, L. Cevallos, S. Chilukuri, A. Diyya, A. Garg, R. Hernandez, D. Kelly, K. Lazo, J. Le, G. Maag, P.D. Marfatia, R. Mehta, A. Nejad, J. Porche, A. Queiroz, D. Sackett, P. Santos Molina, T. Slade, M. So, K. Thakur, A. Urquidez Negrete, S. Wackett, S. Weiss, L. McCarthy, K. Wheaton, A.D. Rudner, J.P. McCutcheon, S.P. Pfeifer. 2021. Complete genome sequence of the Microbacterium bacteriophage Erla. Microbiol. Resour. Announc., 10(3):e01354-20.
- S.P. Pfeifer. Spontaneous mutation rates. In The Molecular Evolutionary Clock. Theory and Practice. Springer Nature.
- A. Crane, J. Abaidoo, G. Beltran, D. Fry, C. Furey, N. Green, R. Johal, B. La Rosa, C. Lopez Jimenez, L. Luong, G. Maag, J. Porche, L. Reyes, A. Robinson, S. Sabbara, L. Soto Herrera, A. Urquidez Negrete, P. Wilson, K. Geiler-Samerotte, S.P. Pfeifer. 2020. The complete genome sequence of the Staphylococcus bacteriophage Metroid. G3 (Bethesda), 10(9): 2975-2979.
- S.P. Pfeifer. 2020. A fine-scale genetic map for vervet monkeys. Mol. Biol. Evol., 37(7): 1855-1865.
- M. Apata and S.P. Pfeifer. 2020. Recent population genomic insights in to the genetic basis of arsenic tolerance in humans: the difficulties of identifying positively selected loci in strongly bottlenecked populations. Heredity, 124(2): 253-262.
- R.B. Harris, K. Irwin, M.R. Jones, S. Laurent, R.D.H. Barrett, M.W. Nachman, J.M. Good, C.R. Linnen, J.D. Jensen, S.P. Pfeifer. 2020. The population genetics of crypsis in vertebrates: recent insights from mice, hares, and lizards. Heredity, 124(1): 1-14.
- R.D.H. Barrett*, S. Laurent*, R. Mallarino*, S.P. Pfeifer, C.C. Xu, M. Foll, K. Wakamatsu, J. Duke-Cohan, J.D. Jensen, H.E. Hoekstra. 2019. Linking genetic variation to survival in wild mice. Science, 363(6426): 499-504.
- L.A.P. Tran, S.P. Pfeifer. 2018. Germline mutation rates in Old World monkeys. eLS, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester.
- S.P. Pfeifer. 2017. Direct estimate of the spontaneous germ line mutation rate in African green monkeys. Evolution, 71(12):2858-2870.
- S.P. Pfeifer. 2017. The demographic and adaptive history of the African green monkey. Mol. Biol. Evol., 34 (5): 1055-1065.
- S.P. Pfeifer. 2017. From next-generation resequencing reads to a high quality variant data set. Heredity, 118 (2):111-124.
| Spring 2022 | |
|---|---|
| Course Number | Course Title |
| BIO 493 | Honors Thesis |
| BIO 494 | Special Topics |
| MBB 495 | Undergraduate Research |
| BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
| BIO 498 | Pro-Seminar |
| Fall 2021 | |
|---|---|
| Course Number | Course Title |
| BIO 492 | Honors Directed Study |
| MBB 495 | Undergraduate Research |
| BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
| Spring 2021 | |
|---|---|
| Course Number | Course Title |
| BIO 494 | Special Topics |
| MBB 495 | Undergraduate Research |
| BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
| BIO 498 | Pro-Seminar |
| Fall 2020 | |
|---|---|
| Course Number | Course Title |
| BIO 494 | Special Topics |
| MBB 495 | Undergraduate Research |
| BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
| BIO 498 | Pro-Seminar |
| Spring 2020 | |
|---|---|
| Course Number | Course Title |
| BIO 498 | Pro-Seminar |
| Fall 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Course Number | Course Title |
| BIO 498 | Pro-Seminar |
| Spring 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Course Number | Course Title |
| BIO 498 | Pro-Seminar |
| EVO 598 | Special Topics |
| BIO 598 | Special Topics |
| Fall 2018 | |
|---|---|
| Course Number | Course Title |
| BIO 494 | Special Topics |
| EVO 598 | Special Topics |
| BIO 598 | Special Topics |
| Spring 2018 | |
|---|---|
| Course Number | Course Title |
| BIO 340 | General Genetics |