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Professor Fernando��Villanea Awarded an NSF CAREER Award for his research, "Archaic hominin genomic variation in modern human populations."

Villanea’s NSF CAREER research begins with the concept that “living people carry archaic genetic material inherited from other hominins such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. This genetic inheritance can affect fitness and health, and its persistence and effects cannot be fully understood unless studies consider each group’s unique population history and the evolutionary processes that shaped them,” he explained.

The goal of Villanea’s study is to assess the presence and evaluate the impact of archaic hominin ancestry in groups with a complex population history by applying sophisticated computational genetic techniques to existing information. Villanea and his research colleagues aim to develop educational tools, provide training opportunities for students at different educational levels and build capacity in a new generation of scientists.

This research advances knowledge of archaic ancestry in groups with complex admixture. To separate the archaic ancestry contributions from those derived from modern groups, this study analyzes the genomes of individuals that predate well-documented historic processes as well as those from modern peoples. To improve admixture models, the study creates computational tools that benefit from artificial intelligence techniques. The study examines the relationship between archaic gene variants and phenotypic traits.

Villanea’s research will focus on the Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry distribution in Indigenous American and descendant Latin American genomes, promoting understanding of the forces of evolution as they acted in Indigenous American and descendant Latin American genomes. A goal is that the knowledge gained will empower underrepresented students to access higher education in medical and STEM fields.

“Computational and statistical competency is a lower cost of entry to STEM and medical sciences than hands-on experience in laboratory techniques, and I believe that this trend is democratizing access to genomics research across all institutions,” Villanea noted. “The trend towards free access to scientific resources is exemplified by the public availability of modern and ancient genomes, and the acceptance of preprint services to remove paywalls to exciting new results and methodologies.

“For this reason, I advocate for the inclusion of computational competency in the curriculum for all students, and see an opportunity for online resources to provide an early form of access to evolutionary theory for pre-college level students that can both grow their interest in biology and improve their chances at academic development by equipping them with high-level theory they can be self-taught supplementing their school curriculum.”