john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Personalized genomics beats personalized genetics

Fri, 2011-09-16 01:00 -- John Hawks

Joe Pickrell encountered sticker shock when faced with the prospect of a medical sequencing test: "The week that I worried I had a rare genetic disease".

What’s really striking to me is that the price of whole genome sequencing is already competitive with commercial Sanger sequencing tests of individual genes.

Amazing how much patent-laden (and labor-intensive) sequencing work can charge to insurance.

Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.