Ray R. Irani Hall
Molecular and Computational Biology
Computational Biology Colloquium
Gill Bejerano
Stanford University
Department of Developmental Biology &
Department of Computer Science
"Genomics and the Evolution of the Human-Specific Traits”
Abstract:
The availability of several primate whole genome sequences has spurred great excitement for the prospect of understanding the molecular basis of what makes us human. Recent investigations have discovered conserved non protein coding genomic loci that have experienced accelerated basepair changes in the human lineage, as well as protein coding genes that show similar evidence of positive selection.
We expand these studies in search of human-specific events particularly likely to produce functional effects. I will share a computational screen resulting in nearly 600 such regions lying in proximity to genes involved in development, morphogenesis, neural function, and steroid hormone signaling.
We have functionally tested a subset of these regions in mice, and have found intriguing examples of regulatory alterations in humans that appear to be associated with evolution of specific anatomical differences between humans and other animals.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
2:00 pm
RRI 101
Host: Frank Alber
