Ancestry and health in Latin American native and admixed populations

Using genome-wide data in collaboration with the Peruvian Genome Diversity Project, our goals are:
(i)Populations from the Peruvian Central Andes are highly homogeneous. We use Approximate Bayesian Computation and patterns of identity-by-descent to infer when the intensification of the gene pool homogenization on this geographic region started, in the historical context of the Andean prehistory.
(ii)Peruvian Native Americans are settled in different environments such as hypoxic of the Andean highlands and the humidity of Amazonian tropical forest. We are identified genetic variants that are highly differentiated between these environments as product of the natural selection.
(iii)To infer the dynamics of European, African and Native American post-Columbian admixture in Peruvian populations of the Coast, Andes and Amazonia.
(iv)To infer how evolutionary factors acting on Peruvian populations have modeled the distribution of GWAS-hits of complex phenotypes and pharmacogenetics biomarkers.

Faculty Supervisor:

Esteban Parra

Student:

Partner:

Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Toronto

Program: