BEAGL · University at Buffalo

What makes us human?

We are the Buffalo Evolutionary and Anthropological Genomics Laboratory. We study structural variation — the duplications, deletions and rearrangements that reshape genomes — to understand how genetic differences produce biological diversity and disease, in living and ancient human populations.

What makes us human?

Buffalo Evolutionary and Anthropological Genomics Laboratory (BEAGL) — investigating how genetic variation explains biological diversity and disease in modern and ancient human populations.

WHAT WE DO

We investigate the contributions of genomic structural variations—beyond single nucleotide variations—to human evolution, combining tools from genomics, functional genetics, anthropology, and evolutionary biology to mechanistically link genetic variation to phenotypic diversity.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Mutation

What different mutational mechanisms shape the size, functional impact, and genomic distribution of different types of genomic structural variation?

Evolutionary Process

What evolutionary processes maintain (ancient) functional, structural variants that we share with Neanderthals?

Function

How do different types of SVs affect biological function at the genetic, transcriptomic, cellular, and organismal levels?

In the lab

Omer Gokcumen with lab members in a research lab in Hochstetter HallA lab member in a lab coat and safety goggles holding a sample at the benchOmer Gokcumen with colleagues at a food marketGokcumen Lab members at a lab meeting by the whiteboard
A lab member pipetting at the benchA lab member reviewing genomic data on a computer screenGokcumen Lab members around a long table at a lab dinnerThree lab members working with equipment at the bench
Omer Gokcumen with Stefan Ruhl and a collection of skullsOmer Gokcumen speaking to a seated audienceLab members working at computers in the graduate student roomOmer Gokcumen with lab members in the lab

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Data and code — our GitHub repository holds code, applications and datasets. Links to primary datasets are in the relevant publications.

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