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SUMMARY:From genomes to genealogies: mapping the history of humans and the
 ir genetic variation using ancient and modern genomes - Professor Simon My
 ers\, Nuffield Department of Medicine\, University of Oxford
DTSTART:20201126T133000Z
DTEND:20201126T143000Z
UID:TALK151144@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Caroline Newnham
DESCRIPTION:Genetic variation is shaped through evolutionary processes act
 ing on our genomes over hundreds of millennia\, including past migrations\
 , isolation by distance\, population bottlenecks\, and natural selection. 
 Such events are reflected in the genealogical trees that relate individual
 s back in time. We have developed an approach\, Relate\, to reconstruct su
 ch genealogies from genetic variation data for many thousands of individua
 ls. Application of Relate to human data provides evidence of directional i
 mpacts of natural selection on many human traits\, for example towards inc
 reased Type II diabetes risk in some populations\, and of mutation process
 es through time\, while simultaneously inferring demographic histories by 
 estimating coalescence rates among different lineages through time.  \n\nA
 ncient genomes can provide a direct snapshot of historical genetic variati
 on\, and so add substantial information. We will discuss an extension to t
 he Relate algorithm for incorporating such samples\, which we use to recon
 struct joint genealogies of the Simon’s Genome Diversity Project dataset
  and previously published high-coverage ancient humans. For low-coverage g
 enomes\, which cannot yet be incorporated fully into genealogies\, we inst
 ead developed a fast and scalable method\, Colate\, enabling inference of 
 historical coalescence rates based on a reference Relate genealogy. Togeth
 er\, these tools allow us to build joint population histories of hundreds 
 of previously published ancient samples dating back thousands of years\, a
 nd modern samples. We characterise how these ancients relate to modern hum
 an groups through time\, alongside wide-spread recent relatedness for both
  ancient and some modern samples.
LOCATION:Zoom meeting
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