Blaine Fitzgerald

Alignment-free pan-k-mer profiles track minimap2 similarity (whole-chromosome r^2 0.959-0.968), profile 605 vertebrate genomes in about a day on 40 cores, and nominate trait-linked loci across plants and animals.

The paper shows a neofunctionalized gene in Solanaceae plants became a flowering antagonist, influencing adaptation across species and environments.

This paper uses CRISPR/Cas9 to engineer compact Physalis peruviana plants to improve yield and scalability for agricultural production.

The paper analyzes the CLE signaling peptide family across 2,000 angiosperm genomes to uncover evolutionary patterns and predict paralog diversification, revealing functional redundancies and regulatory mechanisms.

The paper identifies cryptic genetic variants in tomato that drive phenotypic change through hierarchical epistasis in a gene regulatory network.

The paper uses pan-genomics and genome editing in Solanum to show that paralog diversification hinders genotype-phenotype predictability in crop domestication.

The paper investigates convergent evolution of plant prickles, finding that mutations in a cytokinin gene repeatedly cause prickle loss across species.