Alejandro Sánchez Gracia

Alejandro Sánchez Gracia is an Associate Professor at the Universitat de Barcelona's Faculty of Biology, affiliated with the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics. He leads the Molecular Evolutionary Genetics research group and directs the advanced course in 'Phylogenomics and Population Genomics: Inference and Applications.'

• Education: Llicenciat in Biology (Universitat de Barcelona, 1998), PhD in Biology (Universitat de Barcelona, 2006)
• Research Focus: Molecular mechanisms of chemosensory gene evolution in arthropods, development of bioinformatics tools for evolutionary and population genomics, and population genomics of adaptation in Drosophila.

His work bridges computational methods with evolutionary biology, emphasizing genomic approaches to study adaptation. Key projects include analysis of chemoreceptor gene families across Panarthropoda, genomic studies of Canary Island endemic species, and development of tools like BITACORA for gene family annotation.

He has contributed to major genomic resources such as DnaSP 6 and participated in initiatives like the Earth BioGenome Project. Active in collaborative networks like the European Drosophila Population Genomics Consortium and AdaptNET (Adaptive Genomics Network).

Grants and Projects:

• 2021-2024: PID2020-113168GB-I00 (Ministry of Science, Spain) - Poligenic adaptation in Drosophila
• 2020-2021: Catalan blind scorpion genome project (Institut d'Estudis Catalans)

Labs/Teams: Heads the Molecular Evolutionary Genetics group, collaborating on projects involving spider genomics, chemosensory evolution, and population-level adaptation studies.