Professor Peter Holland FRS
About
Professor Peter Holland is interested in how the evolution of animal diversity can be explained through evolution of the genome. Tackling this requires genome data from across the tree of life; Professor Holland is therefore part of the Darwin Tree of Life project sequencing the complete genomes of thousands of animal species. In recent years his team has been using these genome sequence data to analyse the evolution of homeobox (and other) genes involved in embryo development; they are currently studying the evolution of homeobox genes in insects, snails and mammals.
Expertise
- Genome sequences
- Genome evolution
- Evolution of the animal kingdom
- Homeobox genes
- Hox genes
Selected publications
- Sequence locally, think globally: The Darwin Tree of Life Project (2022)
- Evolutionary origin and functional divergence of totipotent cell homeobox genes in eutherian mammals (2016)
- Did homeobox gene duplications contribute to the Cambrian explosion? (2015)
- Scenarios for the making of vertebrates (2015)
- The Animal Kingdom: A Very Short Introduction (2011)
Media experience
Professor Peter Holland was Scientific Advisor to the Emmy award winning series Your Inner Fish (PBS, 2015) and has provided advice to several other TV documentaries. Media experience also includes appearances and interviews on Horizon (BBC Two) programmes and a guest appearance on BBC Christmas Lectures.
Watch Online
Online lecture: The Diversity of Animals - from Darwin to DNA | Merton College - Oxford