Structure, function, and evolution of globins in the amphibians

I began this project during my undergraduate and master’s studies at the Federal University of Ceará (Brazil), under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Bruno Anderson Matias da Rocha. The main findings were published in my first two research articles. Although the original goal was to investigate the structure of amphibian hemoglobins using crystallography, we identified a gap in the literature regarding the phyletic distribution of globin genes across major amphibian Orders. The increasing availability of genomic data encouraged me to shift the focus toward a comparative genomics and molecular phylogenetics approach. Despite our research group not being specialized in evolutionary biology or comparative genomics, Prof. Bruno supported my enthusiasm for evolution and encouraged the use of these methods to explore the problem more broadly.