New preprint! We sequenced 175 'Alalā (Hawaiian crow) genomes to understand why >50% of eggs fail to hatch in a species recovered from just 9 individuals. What we found was a both exciting and surprising. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We are destroying species' habitats, leading to a mass extinction event.
This habitat destruction also reduces the genetic diversity _within_ species.
Our latest work develops quantitative models to predict how much genetic diversity has been and _will be_ lost.
🧬🧪🧵
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Big congrats to former Lowry Lab postdoc Daniel Anstett, who's paper: "Rapid evolution predicts demographic recovery after extreme drought" is out in Science today. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Cool paper, turning evolutionary theory on its head - gene conversion overcomes the cost of asexual reproduction…
Gene conversion empowers natural selection in a clonal fish species www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Current projects include:
- evolutionary genetics of malaria parasites from wild primates
- adaptation and demography of admixed populations
- genome-structure evolution in primates from long-read assemblies
- the genetic basis of nonhuman primate phenotypes such as folivory and immunity
The Goldberg lab at UCLA is hiring one or more postdocs. Flexible start date.
We develop methods to study population genetics of humans, our primate relatives, and our pathogens.
www.goldberglab.org/join
Job alert: open position for a Professor or Associate Professor of Computational Genomics in Health and Disease at University College London.
Based in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment of UCL, and UGI, and funded by the UCL Health Strategy.
www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/... 🧪
Fun news! @gcbias.bsky.social and I are teaching a 2-week online population genetics workshop this summer to raise money for the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis. We're trying to gauge interest -- please fill this out if you might be interested! And please share broadly!
Ah I missed that! Thanks so much
anyone know if there is childcare at @official-smbe.bsky.social 2026 this year? #SMBE2026
We sequenced #ancientRNA from an 18th-Century human lung and recovered a rhinovirus genome. Take a look at our preprint. Feedback welcome.
Remember to submit your abstract and your award application for SMBE 2026 in Copenhagen by February 3.
❗Just two weeks to go!
Please remember to submit your abstract and award application for SMBE 2026 in Copenhagen by February 3.
📨 Abstract submission & Award applications
smbe2026.org/abstracts
📋 Programme details
smbe2026.org/programme
#SMBE2026
Registration deadline is fast approaching for the "Host adaptations to viral infections” Meeting May 10th-13th, 2026, at the CNRS Station Biologique de Roscoff, Brittany, France! JOIN US and the many amazing speakers! JOIN US!
sites.google.com/berkeley.edu...
Excited to chat about all things pathogen in France :)
If you want to distract yourself while the world falls apart, this is a really cool paper from Amy that simultaneously solves many puzzling observations about malaria parasite genetics by positing the importance of multiple merges
There are some other fun tidbits in there. I see it as starting a discussion on how to better interpret the plethora of malaria data available.
If this is of interest, we are hiring postdocs!! My lab recently moved to UCLA. Would love to chat malaria or primate genetics. www.goldberglab.org
7/7
A basic model recapitulated with piN/piS pattern from sampling variance alone--but only if we remove rare variants, because these don't hold much information about PAIRWISE diversity.
So when we have MMC and so much rare variation, we have a lot of noise and little power
6/n
Instead, I suggest it is largely statistical properties of ratio statistics. The ratio of means =/= the mean of ratios! Especially when the excess rare variation means we expect high sampling variance.
This will be true for all sorts of statistics: gene-level estimates are noisy.
5/n
A particular puzzle discussed for Plasmodium is why ~20-30% of genes appear to have pi_N/pi_S >1. This high nonsynonymous to synonymous diversity has been explained by a range biological hypothesis, from lifecycle effects to purifying selection on synonymous mutation.
4/n
This changes our null model. With MMC, we expect a ton of rare variation.
I dig into how this leads to negative Tajima's D so we should adjust our 'outlier' cutoffs or we will miss selection, and show different Ne estimators are impacted differently
3/n
Reanalyzing the wonderful open malariaGEN Pf8, I suggest that these seemingly desperate patterns have the same underlying causal mechanism: a genealogy that is better represented by multiple merger coalescence (MMC) rather than a bifurcating kingman.
Specifically, SO MUCH rare variation.
2/n
New preprint! and my first single-author paper, so bear with me.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Malaria population genetic studies have found some puzzling patterns: Ne estimates spanning orders of magnitude, genome-wide negative Tajima's D, and over a quarter of genes with πN/πS >1
1/n
Portrait of Brenna Henn next to an open freezer of samples.
Here's my latest contribution to the @nytimes "Lost Science" series. Brenna Henn's sweeping study of African genetics has been frozen. Gift link: nyti.ms/3Ypmm1A
PEQG or ProbGen 2026?
Open faculty position (Assistant or Associate) in UW Medical Genetics. As you might expect, faculty often end up also interacting with Genome Sciences, so we're hoping for some great prospects! Note the clinical requirements for the position. apply.interfolio.com/176466
The 2026 EMBL symposium 'Reconstructing the human past using ancient and modern genomics' is live with a fantastic invited speaker lineup!
Abstract deadline 9 June. If work is ongoing, plan for Heidelberg in September😉.
Organised by Maanasa Raghavan, @matejahajdi.bsky.social, Choongwon Jeong & me.
Come and join us here in Cambridge! Applications open for a new faculty position, for a researcher in computational and/or theoretical biology, based jointly in Genetics and Mathematics. Happy to answer questions about research, teaching and working here.
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/faculty...
An empirical approach to evaluating the prevalence of long-lived balancing selection in humans--and important limitations. Work by @hannahmm.bsky.social
