66545 - MOLECULAR ANTHROPOLOGY AND HUMAN BIODIVERSITY

Academic Year 2017/2018

  • Moduli: Donata Luiselli (Modulo 1) Marco Sazzini (Modulo 2)
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures (Modulo 1) Traditional lectures (Modulo 2)
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Bioinformatics (cod. 8020)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the student has the basic knowledge on human evolution and variability at the molecular level. In particular, the student is able to: understand the most importance differences between ape and human genomes; discover, assay and make inferences from the patterns of human genetic variation; use software for population genetics data analysis (Arlequin, R software, ADMIXTURE...); provide a correct interpretation of results.

Course contents

Course contents

Prerequisites:  knowledge of basic genetics and molecular biology.

  • Introduction to Human Evolutionary Genetics
  • Aims of Molecular Anthropology
  • Population Genetics; Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium with exercises
  • Microevolution and genetic factors: non random mating, genetic drift, gene flow, mutation, natural selection
  • Uniparental Markers -Mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome phylogeny
  • Origins of modern humans
  • Geographical distribution of diversity, Out of Africa model and Multiregional model
  • Making inference from diversity (measures of molecular diversity, neutrality test, mismatch distribution, phylogenetic trees)
  • The Genographic Project and the 1K Genome Project
  • Basics of R and application in human population genetics

Readings/Bibliography

Jobling M.A., Hurles M.E., Tyler-Smith C., Human evolutionary genetics, Garland Science, 2004
Material and tools will be provided as an integration to the information given during the lectures.
Scientific articles, reference and tools provided during the course.

Teaching methods

Lectures, exercises during the course for specific aspects, practicum with R language

Assessment methods

Final examination will be performed  in two different parts:

1) a written test with 10 questions, one is an exercise of population genetics. Each answer has a value up to 3 scores and in the case of complete answers, the student will achieve the full mark cum Laude. 
2) a problem to solve using R software

Teaching tools

overhead, pc

Office hours

See the website of Donata Luiselli

See the website of Marco Sazzini