KLI Post-Doc Fellow Somya Mani has been awarded the EMBO Scientific Exchange Grant for her project, “Exploring the role of novel genes in cell-type individuation in the Cnidarian Hydra vulgaris.” 

With this grant, Somya will be spending three months (Sep - Nov, 2025) in Athens, Greece, where she will be working in collaboration with Dr. Nikolaos Vakirlis, Group Leader at the Hellenic Pasteur Institute. Dr. Varkilis is a leading expert in the study of novel genes, and has extensive experience in devising and implementing innovative in silico methodologies to identify and analyze novel genes in diverse organisms. 

Novel genes are borne either by duplication of pre-existing genes, or de novo origin of genes from non-genic sequences. Novel genes from both origins are known to perform essential biological functions, especially in biological development. They also play a role in regulation of cell-type identity and the invention of novel cell-types. However, there is currently not enough evidence and knowledge of candidate novel genes, especially de novo genes, to experimentally test their role in determining cell-type identities.

This project aims to understand the role of novel genes in regulating and determining the identities of cell-types. Somya and Dr. Varkilis will make use of publicly available genomic and single cell transcriptomic datasets and use bioinformatic methods to identify novel genes in H. vulgaris and computationally characterize their cell-type specific expression profiles as well as novel gene functionality potentially related to determining cell-type identities. 

Congratulations Somya!