The Hays Lab

In the Hays Lab, we study how hosts and genetic parasites shape each other’s evolution. 

To be successful, organisms must adapt to numerous selective pressures. These include their environment, other organisms, viruses and intracellular parasites. These stresses influence evolution at all scales: from ecosystems to disease progression. Theory predicts that biotic conflict can lead to iterative rounds of adaptation, driving rapid evolution, biological innovation and molecular arms races. The environments' role in shaping these conflicts is less well understood. We are working to understand how an organisms internal and external genetic and environmental landscape shapes the evolutionary paths by which they adapt to, and defend themselves from, competing and parasitic genes and genomes: including retrotransposons, viruses, competitor-secreted toxins, and parasitic plasmids. 

As one of the most genetically tractable eukaryotes, our lab uses budding yeasts as our primary host model to explore fundamental questions about antagonistic coevolution and the mechanisms that give rise to biological novelty. Leveraging three complementary approaches 1) genetic and genomic studies, 2) retrospective evolutionary analyses (natural variation), and 3) controlled prospective studies via laboratory experimental evolution allow us to empirically disentangle complex selective pressures and evolutionary tradeoffs in several host-parasite conflicts.   

The Hays Laboratory is located in the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Michigan.