Moorjani Lab
Principal Investigator: Priya Moorjani
Institution: University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
Project Summary Population mixture or admixture—the genetic exchange between divergent populations—is pervasive throughout human evolution and has played a major role in shaping human genetic variation. Analyses of ancient and modern genomes have uncovered how admixture has shaped complex traits and disease susceptibility in contemporary humans, impacting phenotypes from chronic diseases to skin pigmentation and high-altitude adaptation. However, despite significant progress, current analytical methods remain limited in their ability to fully characterize the complexity of admixture processes and their biological consequences. Existing approaches often assume single-pulse admixture models, are not optimized to detect deeply divergent ancestries, and lack the resolution to systematically map the functional impact of admixture on modern human adaptation and disease. These gaps hinder our ability to fully understand how admixture has shaped human genomes and contributed to present-day health and disease. Our groups uses a combination of population genetics theory, statistical modeling, and large-scale genomic data analysis of present-day and ancient genomes to characterize evolutionar…
Active NIH Awards
- 2R35GM142978-06: Genomic Insights into Human Population Mixture and its Role in Adaptation and Disease (2026)
- 5R35GM142978-05: Genomic Insights into Human Population Mixture and its Role in Adaptation and Disease (2025)
- 5R35GM142978-04: Genomic Insights into Human Population Mixture and its Role in Adaptation and Disease (2024)
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