Leonardo Iasi
Postdoc
Department of Evolutionary Genetics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
phone: +49 (0) 341 3550 525
e-mail:
leonardo_iasi@[>>> Please remove the text! <<<]eva.mpg.de
Research Interests
I am generally interested in combining population genetics, evolutionary genetics and computational data inference to approach questions concerning human evolution. Genetics has greatly contributed to our knowledge of human and archaic hominin diversity (Neandertals and Denisovans). One major finding was that admixture, i.e. the exchange of genetic material between previously isolated populations, occurred recurrently between archaic populations and modern humans. Signals of these admixture events are still present in modern day populations, resulting in ~2 % of Neandertal ancestry in human populations outside Africa and up to ~5 % of Denisovan ancestry in some populations of Oceania, shaping adaptive traits and genetic diversity among present day humans.
My doctoral research under the supervision of Svante Pääbo and Benjamin Peter therefore focuses on developing, improving and evaluating methods to detect and date these admixture signals, in both ancient and modern populations, and with gene flow from either known or unknown archaic populations. To do this I improve existing or develop new bioinformatic methods and apply them on genetic data.
Curriculum Vitae
Current Position
| 07/01/2019 - | PhD student in Evolutionary Genetics at the Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig Titel: ”Detecting and Dating of Admxiture Events between Modern Humans and Archaics”. Supervisors: Svante Pääbo, Benjamin M. Peter |
Education
| 10/2016 - 12/2018 | Master of Science in Biological Sciences, Specialization in Computational Biology University of Cologne Title: “Improving Admixture Time Estimates Between Modern Humans and Neandertals” Supervisor: Benjamin M. Peter, Thomas Wiehe |
| 10/2015 – 09/2016 | Master of Science, Toxicology Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf |
| 10/2012 – 09/2015 | Bachelor of Science in Biology University of Cologne Title: “Characterization of Alternative Routs for Cardiolipin Precursor Supply in Saccharomyces cerevisiae” Supervisor: Thomas Langer, Takashi Tatsuta |
Additional Research Experience
| 11/2017 – 12/2017 | Research project in the Evolutionary and Experimantal Biology of Aging group, Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging, Cologne Title: “Simulation of codon sequences under fixed selection scenarios in different killifish genera”. Supervisor: Dario R. Valenzano, Rongfeng Cui |
| 09/2017 – 10/2017 | Research project in the Statistical Genetics and Bioinformatics group, Cologne Center for Genomics Title: “Population genetic and biogeographical analysis of a Frisian aDNA sample”. Supervisor: Michael Nothnagel, Dimitry Drichel |
Teaching Experience
| 04/2014 - 07/2014 | Assistant in undergraduate class in Genetics, University of Cologne. |
| 10/2013 - 02/2014 | Assistant in undergraduate class in Cellular Biology and Biochemistry, University of Cologne. |
Publications
Iasi, L. N. M. (2025). Ancient admixture: Detecting, dating and characterising neandertal admixture in modern human genomes. PhD Thesis, Universität, Leipzig. |
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Sümer, A. P. *., Rougier, H., Villalba-Mouco, V., Huang, Y., Iasi, L. N., Essel, E., Bossoms Mesa, A., Furtwaengler, A., Peyrégne, S., de Filippo, C., Rohrlach, A. B., Pierini, F., Mafessoni, F., Fewlass, H., Zavala, E. I., Mylopotamitaki, D., Bianco, R. A., Schmidt, A., Zorn, J., Nickel, B., Patova, A., Posth, C., Smith, G. M., Ruebens, K., Sinet-Mathiot, V., Stoessel, A., Dietl, H., Orschiedt, J., Kelso, J., Zeberg, H., Bos, K. I., Welker, F., Weiss, M., McPherron, S., Schüler, T., Hublin, J.-J., Velemínský, P., Brůžek, J., Peter, B. M., Meyer, M., Meller, H., Ringbauer, H., Hajdinjak, M., Prüfer, K. *., & Krause, J. *. (2025). Earliest modern human genomes constrain timing of Neanderthal admixture. Nature, 638(8051), 711-717. |
Open AccessIasi, L. N., Chintalapati, M., Skov, L., Bossoms Mesa, A., Hajdinjak, M., Peter, B. M., & Moorjani, P. (2024). Neanderthal ancestry through time: Insights from genomes of ancient and present-day humans. Science, 386(6727). |
Lauterbur, M. E., Cavassim, M. I. A., Gladstein, A. L., Gower, G., Pope, N. S., Tsambos, G., Adrion, J., Belsare, S., Biddanda, A., Caudill, V., Cury, J., Echevarria, I., Haller, B. C., Hasan, A. R., Huang, X., Iasi, L. N., Noskova, E., Obsteter, J., Pavinato, V. A. C., Pearson, A., Peede, D., Perez, M. F., Rodrigues, M. F., Smith, C. C., Spence, J. P., Teterina, A., Tittes, S., Unneberg, P., Vazquez, J. M., Waples, R. K., Wohns, A. W., Wong, Y., Baumdicker, F., Cartwright, R. A., Gorjanc, G., Gutenkunst, R. N., Kelleher, J., Kern, A. D., Ragsdale, A. P., Ralph, P. L., Schrider, D. R., & Gronau, I. (2023). Expanding the stdpopsim species catalog, and lessons learned for realistic genome simulations. eLife, 12: RP84874. |
Skov, L., Peyrégne, S., Popli, D. R., Iasi, L. N., Devièse, T., Slon, V., Zavala, E. I., Hajdinjak, M., Sümer, A., Grote, S., Bossoms Mesa, A., López Herráez, D., Nickel, B., Nagel, S., Richter, J., Essel, E., Gansauge, M.-T., Schmidt, A., Korlevic, P., Comeskey, D., Derevianko, A. P., Kharevich, A., Markin, S. V., Talamo, S., Douka, K., Krajcarz, M. T., Roberts, R. G., Higham, T., Viola, B., Krivoshapkin, A. I., Kolobova, K. A., Kelso, J., Meyer, M., Pääbo, S., & Peter, B. M. (2022). Genetic insights into the social organization of Neanderthals. Nature, 610, 519-525. |
Iasi, L. N., Ringbauer, H., & Peter, B. (2021). An extended admixture pulse model reveals the limitations to human-Neandertal introgression dating. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 38(11), 5156-5174. |
Cui, R., Medeiros, T., Willemsen, D., Iasi, L. N., Collier, G. E., Graef, M., Reichard, M., & Valenzano, D. R. (2019). Relaxed selection limits lifespan by increasing mutation load. Cell, 178(2): e20, pp. 385-399. |