Michael Frachetti and I have written a review on some of the current discussion points in application of ancient genomics to archaeological questions. The main thesis, I think, is summarized as follows: "We argue that the broad and seemingly daunting ethical, methodological, and theoretical challenges posed by archaeogenomics, in fact, represent the very cutting edge … Continue reading New Review: The Impact of Ancient Genome Studies in Archaeology
New paper: Different Neanderthal ancestors
Ozgur Taskent led this elegant study on the history of Neanderthal introgressions into the human gene pool. We added to the growing lines of evidence that our ancestors have met multiple Neanderthal populations, interacted with them, and now we carry little pieces of DNA from our ancient cousins. Our paper also highlights the deletion polymorphisms … Continue reading New paper: Different Neanderthal ancestors
Türkçe yazılar
Bir zamandır laboratuarımızda yaptığımız araştırmaları Türkçe özetlemek gibi bir fikrim vardı. Bu işe başlamak için kendi websitesimizin en uygun medya olacağına karar verdim. Amacım geniş bir okuyucu kitlesi tarafından anlaşılabilir bir şekilde hızla değişen ve insanlığın biyolojik temelleri üzerine hiç beklenmedik bulgulara ulaşan alanımı Türkiye'de tanıtmak. Yazılarımı (ve podcast, video, vb. medya linklerini) https://gokcumenlab.org/tag/turkce/ adresinden … Continue reading Türkçe yazılar
Outreach: Interview @BBC_Reel – Was Neolithic a big mistake?
The photo is by yours truly during my fieldwork in Turkey.
New review: Archaic hominin introgression into modern human genomes
I wrote a new review paper for the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology. It summarizes some the recent insights from the genomes of archaic humans (e.g., Neanderthals, Denisovans, etc.) within an anthropological framework. Specifically, I tried to answer the following questions: How have genomic data from archaic hominins changed our view of human evolution? Is there any doubt … Continue reading New review: Archaic hominin introgression into modern human genomes
New paper: Human and Non-Human Primate Lineage-Specific Footprints in the Salivary Proteome
A very nice study of the proteins in our saliva as compared to our primate cousins came out @MBE - The study is led by our long time collaborator Stefan Ruhl's group. Our results are in line with the general ideas presented in 70's in King and Wilson's classic paper where the dosage differences in … Continue reading New paper: Human and Non-Human Primate Lineage-Specific Footprints in the Salivary Proteome
New review: An Evolutionary Perspective on the Impact of Genomic Copy Number Variation on Human Health
A new review paper by the mighty @marie_saitou on the difficulties and promises in integrating evolutionary framework and investigation of genomic structural variants. We talk a lot about how structural variants of different types likely affect function and have evolutionary impact on human phenotypic variation. But, we keep missing these signatures because: 1. They are … Continue reading New review: An Evolutionary Perspective on the Impact of Genomic Copy Number Variation on Human Health
Webinar (and a new logo): A new era in human evolutionary history research
Folks at RSG-Turkey invited me to give a talk about Evolutionary/Population Genomics - I talked about recent work in our laboratory - of course with a focus on structural variants. 🙂 Also - the new logo thanks to @MarieSaitou https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TrES_f19hs
New Paper: A new method to investigate the haplotype context of duplicated genes
We have reported a computational method to detect the haplotypes harboring polymorphic gene duplications in the human genome variation dataset. This study is now published in Genome Biology and Evolution. The maestro (is it maestra?), herself drew an amazing image to accompany the piece (hopefully the next cover of the journal?). Polymorphic duplications can be … Continue reading New Paper: A new method to investigate the haplotype context of duplicated genes
New paper: Independent amylase gene duplications
Stefan (Ruhl) and I recently published a comprehensive survey of the amylase gene copy number and salivary enzyme activity among mammalian species eLife. Petar (Pajic) was the driving force for the sample collection and analysis. Briefly, we found that 1. Amylase copy number evolves extremely fast leading to independent (I daresay convergent) bursts among mammals … Continue reading New paper: Independent amylase gene duplications
