Mattias Jakobsson receives new funding from the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet, VR) to “develop a statistical, machine-learning–based framework that jointly analyses genomes from archaic humans, ancient southern Africans, and present-day populations.”
In the next four years, the project expects to identify genomic regions and biological pathways that evolved rapidly during the emergence of modern humans by detecting sapiens-specific adaptive variants.
Ancient southern African genomes, representing the deepest known human lineages, are particularly informative, as variants shared across these groups must predate the earliest H. sapiens divergences (~300,000 years ago). By contrasting these genomes with those of Neandertals and Denisovans, evolutionary changes unique to H. sapiens can be identified. In addition to methodological development, the project will substantially expand the dataset of high-quality ancient southern African genomes and integrate functional analyses to elucidate the biological significance of sapiens-specific adaptive variants.
Mattias is also a co-investigator of another VR-funded project: Functional Mechanisms of Genetic Variants Driving Modern Human Evolution, where the main PI is Tuuli Lappalainen, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. This project will advance understanding of the genetic basis of traits unique to modern humans, a fundamental challenge in evolutionary biology.
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