Rajiv McCoy
Rajiv is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Johns Hopkins University. He received a Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford and completed postdoctoral work at the University of Washington and Princeton University in the lab of Josh Akey.
The McCoy lab develops and applies of computational and statistical methods to achieve quantitative perspectives on human evolution and reproduction. Evolutionary research in the lab includes investigation of poorly resolved and repetitive regions of the genome; functional and fitness impacts of gene flow between modern and archaic hominins; and genetic sources of variation in gene expression and other functional genomic phenotypes within and between human populations. Reproductive research includes investigation of the origins of human aneuploidy; improved analysis of data from preimplantation and prenatal genetic testing; and broader understanding of the genetic causes of the high rates of embryo arrest and pregnancy loss in humans. Rajiv is co-organizer the Origins of Aneuploidy Research Consortium and is also a member of the Telomere-to-Telomere Consortium, contributing to analysis of the first gapless assembly of a human genome.
While in the Petrov lab (2010-2015; co-advised by Carol Boggs), Rajiv worked on a range of projects applying novel genomic technologies to address basic evolutionary, ecological, and clinical questions. Rajiv's initial graduate work demonstrated that inference approaches using population genomic data were capable of accurately estimating the timing of known events in the demographic history of an introduced butterfly population. In a second thesis project, Rajiv and other members of the Petrov lab evaluated the utility of Illumina synthetic long-read technology for de novo genome assembly. Finally, in collaboration with the genetic testing company Natera, Rajiv investigated the causes and consequences of extra or missing chromosomes, demonstrating that a common maternal genetic variant confers risk of a complex, lethal form of aneuploidy caused by abnormal mitosis in very early embryonic divisions that lead to lower effective rate of conception. More information can be found at https://mccoy-lab.org.
