Speaker：Charleston Chiang, Ph.D. Center for Genetic Epidemiology, Department of Preventive

Medicine,Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California. Los Angeles, CA 90033,

USA.
Time : 10:00-11:30 am , Apr. 27（Friday）
Venue: Room 258, SIBS Main Building, Yueyang Road 320
Host：Prof. Shuhua Xu

CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology
Title: The Impact of Demographic History on Human Complex Traits
Abstract:

How complex traits change through time is a central question in evolutionary biology and genetics. One of the major evolutionary forces that shaped the distribution of human complex traits is the demographic history of a population. Therefore, in order for human genetics to provide a compelling context for studying complex trait evolution, it is necessary to integrate trait mapping with a detailed knowledge of population history. A well-known example of demographic impact on complex traits is found in present-day Finland, where a population bottleneck in its founding has been suggested to be the reason a number of rare Mendelian disorders are disproportionately more prevalent in Finland. I will illustrate the impact of demographic history of a population on human complex traits by first drawing examples from European populations of Sardinia and Finland. By utilizing large-scale whole-genome or whole-exome sequencing datasets, I will describe our findings in delineating the population structure and history of these populations, and how the special population history empowered association studies. Finally, I will end by describing our ongoing investigation of the population structure, genetic ancestry, and local adaptation in Han Chinese using ultra-low coverage whole-genome sequencing data from > 10,000 individuals across China.
All are Welcome!