Algorithms and Complexity Seminar

Phylogenetic Tree Reconstructions With Insertions and Deletions

Avinatan Hassidim (MIT)

Phylogenetic trees represent evolutionary history, by showing the course of evolution from some far common ancestor to today's species. This history has applications to better understanding of the development of different species, and also has medical applications. Building these trees is done by modeling evolution as a stochastic process, and following the DNA of different species. We propose a new reconstruction algorithm, and show that it has desirable properties.

Based on joint works with Alex Andoni, Mark Braverman, Costis Daskalakis and Sebasiten Roch