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Leonardo Iasi

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Department of Evolutionary Genetics
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
Germany

phone: 0049 (0) 341 3550 518
e-mail: leonardo_iasi@[>>> Please remove the text! <<<]eva.mpg.de


Research Interests
Curriculum Vitae
Publications

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 - 12/2018Master 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 – 09/2016Master of Science, Toxicology
Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf
10/2012 – 09/2015Bachelor 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 – 12/2017Research 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 – 10/2017Research 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 - 07/2014Assistant in undergraduate class in Genetics, University of Cologne.
10/2013 - 02/2014Assistant in undergraduate class in Cellular Biology and Biochemistry, University of Cologne.

Publications

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.
Open Access    DOI    BibTeX   Endnote   

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., Korlević, 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.
Open Access    DOI    BibTeX   Endnote   

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.
Open Access    DOI    BibTeX   Endnote   

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.
DOI    BibTeX   Endnote