Evolution through gene duplications

For two decades, the "complete" human genome wasn't actually complete. Roughly 8% stayed unknown because it was located in the most repetitive, copy-pasted stretches of our DNA, which happen to be the exact regions that I am interested in studying! Now, truly complete assemblies have finally filled in those gaps. We even have pangenomes: genome reference structures built from the DNA of many individuals instead of just one, designed to capture the diversity of a whole population.

In this talk we'll look at the current state of comparative genomics and pangenomics, then turn to vertebrate evolution through one of its most creative forces: gene duplication. When a gene gets accidentally copied, the spare is free to take on new jobs ??" and sometimes it succeeds, producing a gene with a new and important function. We'll meet some duplicated genes that expanded recently in primate evolution and appear to have helped build several distinctly human traits. Hidden for years in genomic "dark matter," they can now be examined in detail for the first time. Come find out how complete genomes are changing the field!

Speaker: Prajna Hebbar, UC Santa Cruz