Genes and Geography: Understanding Human Genetic Diversity

January 16, 2018

Pint Chicago
1547 North Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL, USA

Program Series:
Life Science

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Every human carries a unique individual genome. The ways in which human genomes are similar or different to one another is just now being detailed at high resolution thanks to technological advances in DNA sequencing. These new observations reveal much about our origins as humans and the evolutionary processes that shape both human adaptation and disease. They also are crucial to understand for effectively carrying out global medical genetics and personalized medicine. In this talk, you will be introduced to a few major patterns of human genetic diversity, and tools for data visualization that make them apparent. A special focus will be on geographic structure in human genetic data

Food and beverages are available for purchase at Pint (see menu).

Additional Resources

You may now listen to audio of this program, synced to the presenter’s slides, on our YouTube channel.

Read a wonderful blog post about this event, Evolutionary History One Map At A Time, written by Kristen Hynds-Witte.

Through July 15, 2018, visit the Race: Are We So Different? exhibit at the Chicago History Museum or visit Understanding Race to learn more.

Enjoy the Field Museum’s exhibition, Looking at Ourselves: Rethinking the Sculptures of Malvina Hoffman, through Sunday, February 3, 2019, and/or read Marianne Kinkel’s book about Hoffman’s work, Races of Mankind.

You can also learn more about GINA, the The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, a federal law that protects individuals from genetic discrimination in health insurance and employment.

Speaker

John Novembre

John Novembre is a Professor at the University of Chicago in the Departments of Human Genetics and Ecology & Evolution. His research develops computational methods to empower the study of natural genetic diversity, especially to gain insights about human ancestry and geography. He has been awarded as a MacArthur Fellow, Searle Scholar, and Sloan Research Fellow, and his research is further supported by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. Dr. Novembre studied for his BA at The Colorado College and his PhD at the University of California-Berkeley. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago and then faculty at UCLA for 5 years before returning to the University of Chicago in 2013. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Ancestry.com and as an academic editor for the journal Genetics and the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. Outside of work, he enjoys outdoor sports and adventures.