Department of Evolutionary Genetics
Director: Prof. Dr. Svante Pääbo
The Department of Evolutionary Genetics studies the genetic history of humans, apes and other organisms. We are interested in both the forces that affect the genome directly, such as mutation and recombination, and in the effects of selection and population history.
The department consists of three tenured faculty members: Svante Pääbo, Janet Kelso and Matthias Meyer; and four non-tenured members: Ben Peter, Benjamin Vernot, Mateja Hajdinjak and Hugo Zeberg.
Research is done in the following groups:
Genome Projects
The Department of Evolutionary Genetics has been working on a number of genome sequencing projects. Researchers of the department have sequenced and analyzed Neandertal genomes, a Denisovan genome and a bonobo genome.
