Rodrigo Nunes da Fonseca, Principal Investigator in Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Evo-Devo), opened the seminar series with a lecture focused on the evolution and functional perspectives of small open reading frames (sORFs).
In his presentation, he discussed recent advances in the identification and characterization of sORFs across metazoans, highlighting their potential roles in gene regulatory networks, developmental processes, and evolutionary innovation. The talk emphasized how emerging multi-omics approaches are reshaping our understanding of genome annotation and revealing previously overlooked coding elements.
Additionally, he addressed the challenges associated with sORF detection, conservation analysis, and functional validation, outlining future directions for integrating genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics to uncover the biological relevance of these elements.
