Project description
Mathematical tools for reconstructing evolutionary relationships
Understanding how organisms evolve and relate to one another requires reconstructing their evolutionary history from genetic data, a process called phylogenetics. Accurate phylogenetic trees are essential for tracking viral pandemics, understanding bacterial resistance and studying tumour evolution. However, identifying the mathematically optimal tree from large datasets is computationally demanding, forcing researchers to rely on approximate methods that cannot guarantee accuracy. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the OPTItree project aims to develop scalable mathematical methods for exact and certified phylogenetic inference. Applied to real-world biological datasets, these tools will improve the reliability of evolutionary analysis in medicine and biology.
Objective
The OPTItree project seeks to enhance the scalability of mathematical models for computational phylogenetics, ensuring either provable correctness of the inferred phylogeny or certified solution quality. Determining the correct phylogeny is of crucial importance when studying the evolution of bacteria, viruses, and tumoral cells—especially in sensitive scenarios such as pandemics and tumorigenesis. To this end, this project investigates fundamental mathematical properties at the core of computational phylogenetics—a field at the intersection of mathematics, computer science, and molecular biology that develops models and algorithms to infer evolutionary relationships (phylogenies) from inherited traits such as DNA or genomes. These relationships are typically represented by OPTImal tree structures that are solutions to high-dimensional nonlinear optimization problems. Determining these optimal solutions is often very computationally expensive, and this severely limits the size of datasets that can be processed. To overcome this computational bottleneck, existing software relies on heuristic algorithms, which, however, cannot certify the correctness of the inferred trees. OPTItree focuses on a promising exact method based on the balanced minimum evolution criterion, known for its statistical consistency and cutting-edge theoretical foundations. Specifically, the project aims to: (i) provide deeper insight into the polyhedral structure underlying phylogenetic inference, in order to outperform the current state-of-the-art models that are capable of exactly solving only datasets of very small size for real-world applications; and (ii) design tailored approximation algorithms to efficiently find solutions of certified quality, to be used when exact methods cannot be applied.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences software
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology bacteriology
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology virology
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics DNA
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics genomes
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
30123 Venezia
Italy
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.