Jacob Crawford
Ph.D. Student, Entomology




Jacob studuies the population genomics of the African malaria vector mosquitoe Anopheles gambiaei> with the aim of understanding the relative importance of demographic and selective processes in shaping the genomic architecture of genetic variation. He is particularly interested in using this approach to identify genes underlying mosquito resistance to Plasmodium infection. Past projects in the lab have included a demographic analysis of the "M" and "S" molecular forms of Anopheles gambiae and de novo sequencing and assembly of the transcriptome of Anopheles funestus, and understudied but epidemiologically very important malaria vector.
In his spare time, Jacob is the lead singer and guitar player for 505 Blues.

Jacob received his Bachelor of Science from Georgetown University in 2003, where he completed an undergraduate honors thesis on the learning of predatory behavior by paper wasps under Martha Weiss. After graduation, he took a full time research position with Peter Armbruster at Georgetown, studying life history evolution in container-breeding mosquitoes. Jacob's interest in mosquitoes led him to a research fellowship on the ecology and genetics of disease vector mosquitoes with Tovi Lehmann at the Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, before bringing him to Cornell for his Ph.D.

Visit Jacob's website.
Jacob's Publications

Crawford, J. and B.P. Lazzaro (2012) Assessing the accuracy and power of population genetic inference from low-pass next-generation sequencing data. Frontiers in Evolutionary and Population Genetics 3:66. [pdf]

Crawford, J.E., W.M. Guelbeogo, A. Sanou, A. Traore, K.D. Vernick, N. Sagnon and B.P. Lazzaro. (2010) De novo transcriptome sequencing in Anopheles funestus using Illumina RNA-seq technology. PLoS One, 5:314202. [pdf]
gz archive of all annotated contigs in CSV format (10.7 Mb)
Single compressed FASTA file of all contigs (5.8 Mb)
Archive of all contigs in separate fasta files (6.3 Mb)
Python script automating iterative Velvet assembly approach used to assemble transcriptome

Crawford, J. and B.P. Lazzaro (2010) The demographic histories of the molecular forms of Anopheles gambiae s.s. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 27:1739-1744. [pdf]

Armbruster, P., S. White, J. Dzundza, J.E. Crawford and X. Zhao. (2009) Identification and expression patterns of three atypical OBP-like genes in the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus. Journal of Medical Entomology 46(2):271-280

Diabate, A., R.K. Dabire, K. Heidenberger, J.E. Crawford, W.O. Lamp, L.E. Culler and T. Lehmann. (2008). Evidence for divergent selection between the molecular forms of Anopheles gambiae: role of predation. BMC Evol Biol. 8(1):5

Yaro, A.S., A. Dao, A. Adamou, J.E. Crawford, S.F. Traore, A.M. Toure, R. Gwadz and T. Lehmann. (2006). Reproductive output of female Anopheles gambiae (Diptera: Culicidae): Comparison of the molecular forms. Journal of Medical Entomology 43(5):833-9

Yaro, A.S., A. Dao, A. Adamou, J.E. Crawford, J.M.C. Ribeiro, R. Gwadz, S.F. Traore and T. Lehmann. (2006) The distribution of hatching time in Anopheles gambiae. Malaria Journal 5: Art. No. 19

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