ESP Biography

The human genome is comprised of three billion base pairs, of which, 99% are identical across the entire human population. Only a very small fraction of the genome harbors any variation. It is this small, variable fraction that plays an important role in natural selection and can inform us about events such as demography. With genomic sequencing technology becoming increasingly cheap and accessible to the public, we are now entering an exciting era of personalized genomics and medicine. In this course, we will learn about the signatures of genetic variation that can help us understand our susceptibility to diseases and our human demographic history.

The human genome is comprised of three billion base pairs, of which, over 99% are identical across the entire human population. Only a very small fraction of the genome harbors any variation. It is this small, variable fraction that plays an important role in natural selection and can inform us about past human demographic events including migrations, changes in population size, and the mixing of different populations. As a result of the decreasing price of genomic sequencing technologies and its accessibility to the public, we have entered an exciting era of personalized genomics and medicine. How can we interpret this newly available genomic data, including our own genomes? In this course, we will learn about the signatures of genetic variation that can help us understand our susceptibility to diseases and our human demographic history.

The human genome is comprised of three billion base pairs, of which, surprisingly, 99% is identical across the entire human population. Only a very small fraction of the genome harbors any variation. It is this small, variable fraction that plays an important role in natural selection, and, can inform us about events such as demography. With genomic sequencing technology becoming increasingly cheap and accessible to the public, we are now entering an exciting era of personalized genomics and medicine. In this course, we will learn about the signatures of genetic variation that can help us understand our susceptibility to diseases and our human demographic history.