Melissa A. Wilson Sayres
Media Experience
Australian Broadcasting Company
The Guardian
National Geographic
The Scholar’s Circle
Available for Interviews In
Melissa Wilson Sayres is an evolutionary and computational biologist, and an expert in genetics. She uses bioinformatics and genomics to study sex-biased processes including: the evolutionary dynamics of sex chromosomes, male mutation bias, paternal age effect, spermatogenesis, and pregnancy.
Her work has shown that more mutations are inherited through the male germline (sperm) than through the female germline (egg) in all mammalian species, and that increasing age of reproduction is the primary predictor of the difference in male and female mutation rates, suggesting that there may be a very strong paternal age effect. Further, her genetic work on the human sex chromosomes (X and Y) has shown that although it has shrunk significantly, the content on the Y chromosome is likely affected by natural selection, and we don’t need to worry about losing the human Y chromosome anytime soon.
She has been interviewed about her research and the research of others in her field by the Australian Broadcasting Company, The Guardian, NBC News, and National Geographic, among others.
Wilson Sayres received her B.S. in Medical Mathematics from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, her Ph.D. in Integrative Biology: Bioinformatics & Genomics from The Pennsylvania State University, and worked as an independent Miller postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.
Wilson Sayres is also an active advocate for evolution education at all levels. She has spearheaded several efforts to communicate Science to the public including developing the content and infrastructure for a bi-annual workshop to introduce middle-school-aged girls to diverse Scientific disciplines that has now been running for seven years, and organizing hands-on science activities for over 10,000 participants at the National Science and Engineering Festival. She writes about her own science and other primary research articles for the public on her blog, mathbionerd.blogspot.com, and discusses evolution with anyone who wants to engage at pandasthumb.org.
Follow Wilson Sayers on Twitter @mwilsonsayers.
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Natural selection reduced diversity on human Y chromosomes
(with Lohmueller KE and Nielsen R) PLoS Genetics 10 (1): e1004064 [January 09, 2014] -
Gene survival and death on the human Y chromosome
(with Makova KD) Molecular Biology and Evolution 30(4): 781-7 [2013] -
HGV2011: Personalized genomic medicine meets the incidentalome
(with Brooks AJ, Chanock SJ, Cheung V, Goldstein DB, Jin L, and Kwok P-Y) Human Mutation 33(3): 582-5 [January 17, 2012] -
Genome analyses substantiate male mutation bias in many species
(with Makova KD) BioEssays 33(12): 938-45 [October 11, 2011] -
Evolution and survival on eutherian sex chromosomes
(with Makova KD) PLoS Genetics 5(7): e1000568 [July 17, 2009] -
Interviewed about Y chromosomes
Jonathan Green of ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) Radio National [January 10, 2014] -
Research coverage about our published research on the role of microchimerism in maternal health
journalists at The New York Times, National Geographic, The Smithsonian Magazine. [September 2015] -
"Human Sex Chromosomes are Sloppy DNA Swappers"
Viviane Callier [July 2015] -
Temperature-dependent and genetic sex determination in bearded dragons.
Ed Yong from National Geographic [July 2015] -
“A recent bottleneck of Y chromosome diversity coincides with a global change in culture”
Danielle Paquette, Washington Post; Mark Brodie, KJZZ NPR; Francie Diep, Pacific Stand; and featured on: Slate, IFLS, and reddit. [March 2015]