Andrew Murray

About

Andrew Murray grew up in England with American parents and was inspired to become a scientist by his high school chemistry teacher, "Doc" Powell, after realizing that his initial ambition to be a race car driver was not feasible due to his slow reflexes. He completed his Ph.D. with Jack Szostak, where he worked on constructing artificial chromosomes, and conducted postdoctoral research with Mark Kirschner, demonstrating that cyclin synthesis and destruction regulate the cell division cycle. His research group focuses on experimental evolution using the brewer's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. They employ genetic and physiological perturbations, synthetic biology, and collaborations with theorists to understand the "rules of the game" that explain how cells reproduce, respond to their environment, and evolve. The Murray Lab investigates fundamental questions about cellular function and evolution by studying budding yeast through experimental evolution, genetic analysis, synthetic biology, and cell biology. Their work includes evolving multicellularity, altering mating preferences, circadian oscillators, genetic instability, and new connections between signaling pathways. They develop methods to identify mutations responsible for new phenotypes and explore both general evolutionary trajectories and specific mechanisms organisms use to produce novel traits. The lab also studies how cells accomplish specific tasks and how these solutions evolved, applying the Feynman principle,…

Research topics

• Biology
• Evolutionary biology
• Genetics
• Computational biology
• Biochemistry
• Cell biology
• Botany

Selected publications

• Many, but not all, lineage-specific genes can be explained by homology detection failure

  PLoS Biology · 2020 · 186 citations

  Genes for which homologs can be detected only in a limited group of evolutionarily related species, called "lineage-specific genes," are pervasive: Essentially every lineage has them, and they often comprise a sizable fraction of the group's total genes. Lineage-specific genes are often interpreted as "novel" genes, representing genetic novelty born anew within that lineage. Here, we develop a simple method to test an alternative null hypothesis: that lineage-specific genes do have homologs outs…

  DOI

• Mixing genome annotation methods in a comparative analysis inflates the apparent number of lineage-specific genes

  Current Biology · 2022 · 101 citations

  Comparisons of genomes of different species are used to identify lineage-specific genes, those genes that appear unique to one species or clade. Lineage-specific genes are often thought to represent genetic novelty that underlies unique adaptations. Identification of these genes depends not only on genome sequences, but also on inferred gene annotations. Comparative analyses typically use available genomes that have been annotated using different methods, increasing the risk that orthologous DNA…

  PublisherDOI

• A Putative Bet-Hedging Strategy Buffers Budding Yeast against Environmental Instability

  Current Biology · 2020 · 78 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  To grow and divide, cells must extract resources from dynamic and unpredictable environments. Many organisms use different metabolic strategies for distinct contexts. Budding yeast can produce ATP from carbon sources by mechanisms that prioritize either speed (fermentation) or yield (respiration). Withdrawing glucose from exponentially growing cells reveals variability in their ability to switch from fermentation to respiration. We observe two subpopulations of glucose-starved cells: recoverers,…

  DOI

• Antagonism between killer yeast strains as an experimental model for biological nucleation dynamics

  eLife · 2021-12-06 · 21 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Antagonistic interactions are widespread in the microbial world and affect microbial evolutionary dynamics. Natural microbial communities often display spatial structure, which affects biological interactions, but much of what we know about microbial antagonism comes from laboratory studies of well-mixed communities. To overcome this limitation, we manipulated two killer strains of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae , expressing different toxins, to independently control the rate at whic…

  PublisherDOI

• Zinc-finger protein Zpr1 is a bespoke chaperone essential for eEF1A biogenesis

  Molecular Cell · 2023-01-01 · 17 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NSF-Simons Center for Mathematical and Statistical Analysis of Biology

  NSF · $5.0M · 2018–2024

• Feedback Control of the Cell Cycle

  NIH · $8.4M · 1990–2025

• NIH Grant R37GM043987

  NIH · $4.9M · 2010

Frequent coauthors

• David R. Nelson

  43 shared

• Jack W. Szostak

  40 shared

• Rey‐Huei Chen

  Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica

  26 shared

• John H. Koschwanez

  19 shared

• Antonio Ferrante

  South Australia Pathology

  18 shared

• Lauren A. O’Connell

  Stanford University

  16 shared

• Joshua B. Plotkin

  University of Pennsylvania

  16 shared

• Charles S. Hii

  Women's and Children's Hospital

  16 shared

Education

• Cell and Developmental Biologhy, Division of Medical Sciences

  Harvard Medical School

  1984

• Biochemistry, Natural Sciences

  Clare College, University of Cambridge

  1978

Similar researchers at Harvard University

• Nathanael Grayh-185
• David Livingstonh-177
• Stephen Harrisonh-162