Jamie McGowan

Postdoctoral Scientist - Earlham Institute






I am a postdoc in the Swarbreck Group at the Earlham Institute. I am working on sequencing protist genomes as part of the Darwin Tree of Life Project (DToL), which aims to sequence the genomes of all ~70,000 eukaryotic species in Britain and Ireland. My main interests are in the broad areas of evolutionary genomics and bioinformatics. I am particularly interested in microbial/single-celled eukaryotes (protists) as these include the most under sampled, diverse lineages of eukaryotes and some of the most devastating pathogens.

Prior to joining the Earlham Institute, I carried out my PhD research at Maynooth University with Dr David Fitzpatrick. Here, I applied a mix of bioinformatics, genomics, and proteomics techniques to study genomic evolution in Phytophthora and other oomycete species. These microbial pathogens represent one of the biggest threats to global food security and natural ecosystems. I also obtained a first-class honours BSc degree in Biology and Computer Science from Maynooth University.

Research Interests


Education

Year University Degree Subject
2016 - 2020 Maynooth University PhD Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Genomics
2012 - 2016 Maynooth University BSc (Double Honours) Biology and Computer Science (First Class Honours)

Publications

2024

Multiple Independent Genetic Code Reassignments of the UAG Stop Codon in Phyllopharyngean Ciliates

Jamie McGowan, Thomas A. Richards, Neil Hall, David Swarbreck

bioRxiv Preprint

2023

Identification of a Non-Canonical Ciliate Nuclear Genetic Code Where UAA and UAG Code for Different Amino Acids

Jamie McGowan, Estelle S. Kilias, Elisabet Alacid, James Lipscombe, Benjamin H. Jenkins, Karim Gharbi, Gemy G. Kaithakottil, Iain C. Macaulay, Seanna McTaggart, Sally D. Warring, Thomas A. Richards, Neil Hall, David Swarbreck

PLOS Genetics

2022

F-box receptor mediated control of substrate stability and subcellular location organizes cellular development of Aspergillus nidulans

Özlem Sarikaya Bayram, Özgür Bayram, Betim Karahoda, Cindy Meister, Anna M. Köhler, Sabine Thieme, Nadia Elramli, Dean Frawley, Jamie McGowan, David A. Fitzpatrick, Kerstin Schmitt, Leandro Jose de Assis, Oliver Valerius, Gustavo H. Goldman, Gerhard H. Braus

PLOS Genetics

2022

Genome of Pythium myriotylum Uncovers an Extensive Arsenal of Virulence-Related Genes among the Broad-Host-Range Necrotrophic Pythium Plant Pathogens

Paul Daly, Dongmei Zhou, Danyu Shen, Yifan Chen, Taiqiang Xue, Siqiao Chen, Qimeng Zhang, Jinfeng Zhang, Jamie McGowan, Feng Cai, Guan Pang, Nan Wang, Taha Majid Mahmood Sheikh, Sheng Deng, Jingjing Li, Hüseyin Okan Soykam, Irem Kara, David A. Fitzpatrick, Irina S. Druzhinina, Günseli Bayram Akcapinar, Lihui Wei

Microbiology Spectrum

2021

Dual-transcriptomic, microscopic, and biocontrol analyses of the interaction between the bioeffector Pythium oligandrum and the Pythium soft-rot of ginger pathogen Pythium myriotylum

Paul Daly, Siqiao Chen, Taiqiang Xue, Jingjing Li, Taha M. Sheikh, Qimeng Zhang, Xuehai Wang, Jinfeng Zhang, David Fitzpatrick, Jamie McGowan, Xiujuan Shi, Sheng Deng, Min Jiu, Dongmei Zhou, Irina Druzhinina, Lihui Wei

Frontiers in Microbiology

2021

Genomic diversity, chromosomal rearrangements, and interspecies hybridization in the Ogataea polymorpha species complex

Sara J. Hanson, Eoin Ó Cinnéide, Letal I. Salzberg, Kenneth H. Wolfe, Jamie McGowan, David A. Fitzpatrick, Kate Matlin

G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics

2020

Comparative Genomic and Proteomic Analyses of Three Widespread Phytophthora Species: Phytophthora chlamydospora, Phytophthora gonapodyides and Phytophthora pseudosyringae

Jamie McGowan, Richard O'Hanlon, Rebecca A Owens, David A Fitzpatrick

Microorganisms

2020

Recent Advances in Oomycete Genomics

Jamie McGowan, David A Fitzpatrick

Advances in Genetics

2019

Characterisation of three Novel β-1, 3 glucanases from the Medically Important House Dust Mite Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus (airmid).

Rose Waldron, Jamie McGowan, Natasha Gordon, E Bruce Mitchell, David A Fitzpatrick, Sean Doyle

Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

2019

Whole Genome Sequence of the Commercially Relevant Mushroom Strain Agaricus bisporus var. bisporus ARP23

Eoin O'Connor, Jamie McGowan, Charley GP McCarthy, Anica Amini, Helen Grogan, David A Fitzpatrick

G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics

2019

Control of Development, Secondary Metabolism and Light-Dependent Carotenoid Biosynthesis by the Velvet Complex of Neurospora crassa

Ozlem Sarikaya Bayram, Anne Dettmann, Betim Karahoda, Nicola M Moloney, Tereza Ormsby, Jamie McGowan, Sara Cea-Sanchez, Alejandro Miralles-Duran, Guilherme TP Brancini, Eva M Luque, David A Fitzpatrick, David Canovas, Luis M Corrochano, Sean Doyle, Eric U Selker, Stephan Seiler, Ozgur Bayram

Genetics

2019

Proteome and Allergenome of the European House Dust Mite Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus

Rose Waldron, Jamie McGowan, Natasha Gordon, Charley McCarthy, E Bruce Mitchell, David A Fitzpatrick

PLOS One

2018

Comparative Analysis of Oomycete Genome Evolution Using the Oomycete Gene Order Browser (OGOB)

Jamie McGowan, Kevin P Byrne, David A Fitzpatrick

Genome Biology and Evolution (GBE)

2017

Genomic, Network, and Phylogenetic Analysis of the Oomycete Effector Arsenal

Jamie McGowan, David A Fitzpatrick

mSphere

2017

Draft Genome Sequence of Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, the European House Dust Mite

Rose Waldron, Jamie McGowan, Natasha Gordon, Charley McCarthy, E Bruce Mitchell, Sean Doyle, David A Fitzpatrick

Genome Announcements



Tools

OGOB - Oomycete Gene Order Browser

A curated database that facilitates comparative genomic and syntenic analyses of oomycete species

OGOB
BUSCO Phylogenomics

A simple Python pipeline to construct species phylogenies using BUSCO proteins/genes with supermatrix and supertree appraoches

GitHub
SkimSeqQC Pipeline

A snakemake pipeline for QC of low-coverage skim-sequencing of genome and transcriptome data

GitHub
Coassembly Pipeline

A snakemake pipeline to generate and QC genome (co)assemblies and transcriptome alignment

GitHub
Bioinf Tools

A collection of simple easy to use online bioinformatics tools

Bioinf Tools
Assembly Kmer Clustering

A Python/R tool to visualise and cluster contigs from a genome assembly. Useful for metagenomes or contaminated assemblies

GitHub
Oomycete Networks

An interactive website to explore sequence similarity networks of oomycete effector proteins

Oomycete Networks
Telomere Search

A Python script to identify telomeric repeats using regular expressions

GitHub