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Statistics Department Seminar Series: Jon Terhorst, Ph.D., Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkley

Robust and scalable inference of population history and selection from hundreds of whole genomes
Friday, January 20, 2017
11:30 AM-1:00 PM
411 West Hall Map
Abstract:

Demographic inference refers to the problem of inferring past population events (migrations, admixture, expansions, etc.) from patterns of mutations found in sampled DNA. Apart from intrinsic appeal of understanding, for example, our origins and the peopling of our planet, this type of analysis is useful for forming a null model of human evolution, departures from which signal the presence of natural selection, population structure, and other interesting phenomena.

In this talk I will discuss recent statistical and computational innovations which enable us to infer demography using modern data sets consisting of hundreds of whole-genome sequences obtained from populations all over the world. These include momi, a new software package for stable and rapid computation of the expected sample frequency spectrum (SFS) under complex demographic scenarios involving numerous diverged populations, as well as SMC++, a new probabilistic framework which couples the genealogical process for a given individual with allele frequency information for a large panel of related samples. I will demonstrate how we are using these tools to learn about how human populations expanded in the last 12,000 years, understand the mysterious origins of ancient DNA samples, and estimate when Europeans acquired lighter skin and the ability to digest lactose. Finally, I will discuss some of the statistical aspects of these estimators, in particular an information-theoretic lower bound on the error attainable by any SFS-based demographic inference procedure.

All relevant theory will be introduced during the talk; no prior knowledge of population genetics is assumed. Portions of this work are joint with Jack Kamm, Pier Palamara, and Yun Song.
Building: West Hall
Website:
Event Type: Workshop / Seminar
Tags: seminar
Source: Happening @ Michigan from Department of Statistics, Department of Statistics Seminar Series