2022

2022-12-14 – Together with our collaborators we published this article on the human remains from Mumbwa Caves in Zambia, incorporating C14 dates and archeological assessments.

2022-11-29 – Carina gave a talk at the Ancient DNA symposium in Stockholm. Link to talks.

2022-11-04 – Rickard successfully defended his PhD thesis with Luca Pagani as opponent. Congrats Mario! Action picture.  The “spikning” (two weeks before defense). Link to thesis.

2022-11-04 – Together with our collaborators we published this article on population history of Madagascar: “The loss of biodiversity in Madagascar is contemporaneous with major demographic events”

2022-10-02 – Carina gave a talk at the ICGEB (Cape Town) seminar series. Link to talk.

2022-10-02 – Carina gave a talk at the University of Vienna HEAS Seminar Series in Ancient Genomics. Link to talk.

2022-09-29 – We published a new paper on “Demographic and Selection Histories of Populations Across the Sahel/Savannah Belt“. Congrats to Cesar, Viktor and all co-authors! Link to paper.

2022-09-13 – Carina gave a talk at the EMBO-EMBL Symposium Reconstructing the Human Past.

2022-09-01 – Nathaniel Buckley joined our group to do his Masters research project. Welcome Nathaniel!

2022-08-28 – We have a new article out on BioRxiv: “Eurasian back-migrations into Northeast Africa was a complex and multifaceted process” Link. Congrats to Rickard!

2022-06-01 – Carina presents an invited talk at the 19th H3Afr Consortium meeting.

2022-05-30 – Carina gives a keynote talk at the College de France conference organized by Lluis Quintana-Murci and Etienne Patin. Link to talks here.

2022-05-16 – Carina gives a talk at the Data Driven Life Sciences symposium organized to inaugurate the new Ångström Laboratory in Uppsala. Link

2022-05-03 – We published a new paper on “Human adaptation to arsenic in Bolivians living in the Andes“. Congrats to Jessica and all co-authors! Link to paper.

2022-04-11 – Carina wrote a dispatch for Current Biology on “Testing the limits of de-extinction“, a commentary on the article by Lin et al.

2022-03-14 – Our funding agency, Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation, made this great video about our research. Link to video.

2022-03-01 – Concetta and Cesar receive funding from the Swedish Phytogeographical Society. Congrats to both!

2022-02-10 – Carina presents at the annual Celsius-Linnaeus lectures, in a session about human history featuring Svante Päabo. Link

2022-02-08 – Together with our South African collaborators we published this article on the human remains from Cathkin Peak, incorporating C14 dates and archeological assessments.

2022-01-15 – Vivianne (Viv) Inglis and Lucía Alva Caballero join the group to do their Masters and Bachelor project work. Welcome!

2021

2021-12-16 – We celebrated the closing of an interesting and successful year with a Christmas Potluck in the Human Evolution group. Thanks to the whole group for a year of hard work, commitment and fun. Happy Holidays!

2021-12-16 – Carina gives a talk at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Barcelona University, hosted by David Comas. IBE personnel do a very nice in-depth interview with Carina. Link

2021-12-07 – Our paper “Male-biased migration from East Africa introduced pastoralism into southern Africa” is now online in BMC Biology. Thanks to co-authors and participants who made this great study a reality! And congrats to Mario Vicente et al. Paper link.

2021-11-23 – Our new book is published: “Africa, the Cradle of Human Diversity”, published with Brill Publishing as an OpenAccess eBook. Thank you to all the authors who contributed to this project and in particular to my co-editors Cesar Fortes-Lima and Ezekia Mtetwa. Book link.

2021-11-09 – Carina gives a talk at the Baylor College of Medicine, Molecular and Human Genetics seminar series, hosted by Elizabeth Atkinson.

2021-11-02 – Carina is co-hosting the Welcome Genome conference: Human Evolution – From Fossils to Ancient and Modern Genomes. A great conference with wonderful and exciting speakers. Link

2021-10-22 – We have a new article out “The performance of common SNP arrays in assigning African mitochondrial haplogroups” in BMC Genomic Data, with Imke as lead author. Also including Mario Vicente and Chiara Barbieri as collaborators. Paper link.

2021-10-18 – Happy to announce a review (with Gwenna + Cesar) on “Revisiting the demographic history of Central African populations from a genetic perspective” in a special issue on the work of Cavalli-Sforza, for a new journal “HPGG”. Paper link.

2021-10-16 – We published a new paper “Comparison of sequencing data processing pipelines and application to underrepresented African human populations, reveals challenges from human diversity” in BMC Bioinformatics with Gwenna Breton leading the study. Paper link. Congrats Gwenna!

2021-09-27 – Carina gives a talk at the Basque University seminar series, hosted by Santos Alonso

2021-09-27 – Carina gives a talk at the University of Cape Town Archaeology Lunchtime seminar, hosted by Judy Seally

2021-08-13 – A collaborative paper lead by Max Larena on Denisovan admixture in southeast Asia is out today in Current Biology! Many congrats and thanks to Max, other collaborative partners and participants who made this work possible. Paper link.

2021-06-22 – Carina became a senior lecturer / associate professor in a tenured position.

2021-06-11 – Jessica defends her PhD successfully. “Environmental arsenic exposure in humans : toxicity and adaptation in the Bolivian Andes”

2021-06-10 – Camille successfully presents and defends her Masters project on starch adaptation

2021-05-28 – The teaching in our Masters course: Human Evolution and Genetics, concludes successfully

2021-05-25 – Dilja successfully presents and defends her Masters project on starch sex biased admixture patterns

2021-05-14 – Our paper is out in JAS explaining why we refute the idea of a single ‘African homeland’ in southern Africa, a response to Chan et al. Led by Carina Schlebusch, Liisa Loog, Mark Thomas and a collection of authors spanning the range of disciplines in the human sciences. Paper Link.

2021-05-06 – Carina gives a talk at the University of Johannesburg, Palaeo-TrACKS lecture series

2021-05-01 – Julia formally joins the group as a joint PhD student between the Schlebusch and Malmström groups

2021-04-26 – Happy to announce a new special issue in Human Molecular Genetics on “Evolutionary genomics in Africa“. Edited by Michele Ramsay, Carina Schlebusch and Kay Davies. Containing nineteen excellent review papers on African population history and adaptation.

2021-04-14– We publish a book chapter on “Analysis of Population Structure” in the book Human Population Genomics by Lohmueller and Nielsen.

2021-04-07 – Our article on human population genetics in South Africa is out today! Lead authors Dhriti Sengupta, Ananyo Choudhury. Congrats also to Cesar and the great SBIMB team. Paper link.

2021-03-24 – We have a new paper out in GBE on lactase persistence in Sudanese and South Sudanese population. Congrats Nina! Paper Link

2021-03-22 – Our paper on Philippine genetic origins and migration history for the past 50,000 years out today! Many congrats and thanks to Max Larena and the huge network of collaborative partners and participants who made this work possible. Paper link.

2021-03-04 – Various people in the group are participating in SciFest2021, in which we communicate our research to the general public in the form of workshops, videos and interactive zoom sessions. We are developing and presenting workshops/sessions on “Human Evolution: How do we analyse DNA sequence data?“, “Human Evolution: how is it to work in an ancient DNA lab?” and “Archaeogenetics: How ancient DNA contributes to the reconstruction of our past”.

2021-02-12 – In a collaboration with the BantuFirst team, we published an article in Science Advances, that urges a reassessment of the Bantu-expansion following evidence of a population collapse. Link here

2021-02-04 – Our article on the Vaalkrans man came out today in AJPA (link). We got quite descent genome coverage of just over 1x for this hair sample and found it belonged to a Khoekhoe man who lived around 200 years ago in the southern African Cape coast.  Congrats to Alex and thanks to all collaborators!

2021-01-15 – Camille Humbert joins the group for a Masters project. Camille will work with Concetta on copy number variation and selection in African populations. Welcome Camille!

2020

2020-11-24 – Cesar wrote a Spotlight article in Trends in Genetics about the H3Africa study, recently published in Nature, to highlight the important role of genomic research in Africa. Congrats Cesar! Link

2020-11-18 – Diljá Ásmundsdóttir joins the group for a Masters project. Dilja will work with Nina on sex-biased admixture patterns in southern African populations. Welcome Diljá!

2020-11-12 – Cesar received a Nilsson Ehle grant. Congrats Cesar!

2020-10-26 – The teaching in our Masters course: Human Evolution and Genetics, concludes successfully. From next year on the teaching will be in the spring term. Application now open! Link

2020-09-18 – Gwenna successfully defends her thesis: Human Demographic History: Insights on the human past based on genomes from Southern through Central Africa. Thesis link. Congrats Gwenna!

2020-08-19 – Our collaborative publication in AJPA on Lactase persistence in the Sahel region, is online now. Link. Sahelian pastoralism from the perspective of variants associated with lactase persistence. Another successful collaborative paper with the Cerny lab!

2020-08-11 – Another exciting preprint online: “Genetic-substructure and complex demographic history of South African Bantu speakers” Great collaborative work with the SBIMB group!

2020-07-23 – We have a new preprint online on “Ancient DNA of Rickettsia felis and Toxoplasma gondii implicated in the death of a hunter-gatherer boy from South Africa, 2,000 years ago“.  Great to work with the Rifken and Lombard groups.

2020-07-22 – Our two articles on 25 high coverage full genomes from southern African Khoe-San individuals were published in MBE and GBE today. Thanks to Per, Gwenna, TJ, Mattias and many other co-authors! Link to MBE full genome study. Link to GBE Y-chromosome study.

2020-06-18 – Our review on African aDNA studies are now available in Curr Opin in Genet and Devel: Vicente and Schlebusch 2020 – African population history: an ancient DNA perspective

2020-04-24 – We have a new preprint available online: “The genetic variation of lactase persistence alleles in northeast Africa“. Congrats Nina!

2020-04-24 – Mario successfully defended his PhD thesis with Lluis Quintana-Murci as opponent. Congrats Mario! Action picture.  The “spikning” (two weeks before defense). Link to thesis.

2020-03-06 – Mario handed in his thesis – Congrats in finishing the write-up part Mario and good luck for the last stretch!

2020-03-01 – Imke joined the group as a new PhD student. Welcome to PhD studies Imke!

2020-03-01 – Nina joined the group as a new SciLife Lab funded Postdoc, shared between the Schlebusch and Jakobsson group. Welcome Nina!

2020-02-24 – Our paper on admixture in the Afrikaner population of South Africa is out in BMC Biology. Thanks to all co-authors for getting this out! Link 

2020-02-04 – We published a popular science aDNA article in The Biochemist. Mario, Alex and Carina contributing. Link

2020-01-17 – Alex successfully defends her thesis entitled: “Where our feet have taken us:
Examples of human contact, migration, and adaptation as revealed by ancient DNA“. Congrats Alex!

2020-01-15 – We are sad to say goodbye to Ezekia who left the group to work at the archaeology Department in Uppsala. We congratulate him however on his new postdoc at Archaeology and  we will continue to work together on collaborative projects!

2019

2019-12-16 – We closed a successful 2019 with our year-end Christmas potluck in the Human Evolution corridor! Thanks to all for a great 2019 and looking forward to 2020!

2019-12-16 – Congrats to Cesar and Concetta who received bursaries from the Swedish Phytogeographic Society and the Borgström Foundation!

2019-12-03 – We are excited and very grateful to the Knut och Alice Wallenberg foundation for awarding the group with a Fellows grant! Announcement here

2019-12-02 – Mario and Edita (visiting student from the Cerny lab) publish their article on the genetic history of the Fulani nomads and the first ever GWAS of lactase persistence (as far as we know) in BMC genomics. Article available here. Thank you to the Cerny group for this nice collaborative effort!

2019-11-25 – Cesar receive the Vice-Chancellor’s travel grant from the Wallenberg foundation. Congrats to Cesar!

2019-11-16 – Our commentary “Human Origins in Southern African Palaeo-wetlands? Strong Claims from Weak Evidence” on the controversial Nature article by Chan et al is available as a preprint from Preprints.org – currently submitted as a Matters Arising commentary to Nature.

2019-11-15 – Concetta receives a grant from the Nilsson Ehle foundation – congrats Concetta!

2019-10-30 – Carina presents a talk at the Human Evolution conference at the Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge

2019-10-30 – Our teaching concludes for the Human Evolution and Genetics Masters course. Another successful year with great discussions and great students!

2019-10-12 – The early online version of our manuscript “Along the Indian Ocean coast: genomic variation in Mozambique provides new insights into the Bantu expansion” is now available here from Molecular Biology and Evolution. Great collaboration with the Jorge Rocha group and great work by visiting student Armando Semo together with Magda Gaya and Cesar – congrats to everybody!

2019-09-24 – Carina presents a talk at the Unlocking the past: Ancient DNA symposium in Uppsala. Congrats to Magnus Lundgren and the SciLifeLab ancient DNA team for organising an exciting symposium!

2019-08-31 – Carina presents a talk at the 19th International Gene Forum in Tartu, Estonia.

2019-08-05 – Cesar presents an oral presentation at the SASHG2019 conference in Cape Town

2019-08-01 – We welcome a new postdoc to our group. Concetta Burgarella is a Marie Curie fellow and will work on parallels between human and crop evolution during the Holocene in Africa. Welcome Concetta!

2019-07-24 – Carina hosts a  symposium “Inside Africa: Uncovering Patterns of Human Genetic Diversity” together with Hiba Babiker (MPI Jena) at the SMBE2019 conference in Manchester

2019-07-22 – Rickard and Carina presents posters at the SMBE2019 conference in Manchester

2019-07-10 – Our article is out on “Mozambican genetic variation provides new insights into the Bantu expansion” See our article on BioRxiv! Link

2019-07-09 – Our article was published in Molecular Biology and Evolution on “Genetic Affinities among Southern Africa Hunter-Gatherers and the Impact of Admixing Farmer and Herder Populations”. Congrats to Mario! See our Open Access article on the MBE website: Link

2019-06-07 – Carina presents a talk at the “Peopling history of Africa” conference in Geneva.

2019-05-27 – Our article is out on the genetic history of the Fulani nomads and the first ever GWAS of lactase persistence! (as far as we know). Is there another gene involved in Lactase Persistence? See our article on BioRxiv! Link

2019-05-27 – We are grateful and inspired after a successful conference “Africa, the cradle of human diversity” . See some twitter feeds and photos here.

2019-05-25 – Congrats to Mario and Ezekia who won the best poster prizes at the “Africa, the cradle of human diversity”  conference!

2019-05-10 – Our paper “Four Iron Age women from KwaZulu-Natal: biological anthropology, genetics and archaeological context” is now published in SA Humanities – featuring further analyses on the 4 Iron age women that we published aDNA from in 2017. Journal link. PDF link.

2019-05-07 – Ezekia received a grant from the SAU Foundation for his fieldwork. Congrats Ezekia!

2019-04-26 – Carina publishes a book chapter on “Population migration and adaptation during the African Holocene: A genetic perspective” in a new book “Modern Human Origins and Dispersal”  PDF link

2019-04-23 – Our new paper reporting that the Plovers lake human remains are not as old as previously thought is published in the Journal of Human Evolution. A study that demonstrates the usefulness of inter-disciplinary investigation into the human past. Link

2019-04-12 – We are very happy to have received a conference grant from RIKSBANKENS JUBILEUMSFOND for further funding of our upcoming conference: “Africa, the cradle of human diversity”

2019-04-01 – We welcome a new Master student to our group. Imke Lankheet will work on optimizing mtDNA capture techniques in the lab.

2019-03-31 – Cesar presents a poster at the EMBO conference on Reconstructing the Human Past in Heidelberg, Germany

2019-02-17 – Cesar visits the Sydney Brenner Institute in Johannesburg for collaborative work

2019-12-15 – Jessica successfully completes her halftime defense. Well done Jessica!

2019-02-12 – Concetta Burgarella receive the Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship with the Schlebusch group as a host! She will join our group in August 2019. Welcome Concetta!

2019-02-07 – We post our preprint on Afrikaner genetics online on BioRxiv: “Patterns of African and Asian admixture in the Afrikaner population of South Africa”

2019-02-01 – Registration and abstract submission open for our SMBE2019 symposium: “Inside Africa: Uncovering Patterns of Human Genetic Diversity”. Organisers: C Schlebusch Uppsala U, H Babiker MPI-SHH. Invited speakers E Patin, Inst Pasteur and L Perreira, U Porto. SMBE2019-symposia

2019-01-18 – Carina act as opponent in the PhD defense of Sandra De Oliviera of the Rocha lab at U Porto. Sandra defends her thesis very successfully!

2019-01-15 – Registration is open for our upcoming conference: “Africa, the cradle of human diversity”

2019-01-04 to 2019-01-28 – Armando Semo visit our group to work further on our collaborative project with the Jorge Rocha Lab

2018

2018-12-05 – We are very happy to have received a Wenner Gren conference grant for funding part of our upcoming conference: “Africa, the cradle of human diversity”

2018-12-15 – Ezekia receive the Birgit and Gad Rausings Foundation for mortuary archaeology bursary. Congrats!

2018-12-12 – Cesar receive the Borgström-Hedström Foundation bursary. Congrats!

2018-12-11 – Cesar received the Lars Hierta Minne Foundation bursary for his project work. Congrats!

2018-11-14 – Cesar and Ezekia both received Nilsson Ehle bursaries for their project work. Congrats to both!

2018-11-13 – We are very happy to have received a VR conference grant for funding part of our upcoming conference: “Africa, the cradle of human diversity”

2018-11-08 – TJ Naidoo (co-supervised by Carina) successfully defended his thesis. Congrats TJ!

2018-11-03 – Cesar presents a talk at the American Association for Biological Anthropology (ALAB 2018) conference in Puerto Rico about his recent article on population structure and admixture in Cuba.

2018-10-01 – We started our organisation of our 2019 conference in Uppsala: “Africa, the cradle of human diversity”. We are looking forward to this opportunity to meet and discuss cross-disciplinary research and ongoing projects with our colleagues and collaborators!

2018-09-08 – We had a group outing in the Swedish countryside and enjoyed meeting each others families, chatting in a setting far away from work and eating a great pot-luck lunch. Thanks to everybody!

2018-09-01 to 2018-10-31  – Many people in the group are teaching in our two new courses that the Human Evolution program is presenting: Human Evolution and Genetics (a Masters level course) and Human Evolution: an Overview (an introductory evening course).

2018-08-31 – Our review paper “Tales of Human Migration, Admixture, and Selection in Africa” is published in Annual review of genomics and human genetics. (Link)

2018-08-06 to 2018-08-10  – Rickard attends the Population Genetics Workshop (popgen2018) in Copenhagen.

2018-07-30  – Cesar publish an article on the demographic history of Cuba in Scientific Reports. Congrats Cesar!

2018-07-08 to 2018-07-12  – Mario and Carina attend the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution 2018 conference (SMBE 2018) in Tokyo Japan and present posters on their recent work

2018-06-20 – Carina presents an invited talk in the genetics session of the Society for Africanist Archeologists 2018 conference (Safa 2018) in Toronto Canada

2018-06-01 – We welcome two new members in the group. Cesar Fortes-Lima as a postdoc and Ezekia Mtetwa as a researcher. Welcome!

2018-05-31 – Carina became docent (Associate Professor) in Human Evolution and Genetics

2018-04-01 – Carina presented a keynote lecture at the SMBE satellite meeting on “Modern Methods for the Study of Ancient DNA” in Providence, USA.

2018-04-01 – We welcomed two new lab-members this month; Cecile Jolly (Research Engineer) and Rickard Hammaren (PhD student). Welcome!

2018-03-19 – Jessica de Loma Olsson from Karolinska Institute is visiting our group for a few months to do analyses as part of a collaboration with Karin Brobergs’ group. Welcome Jessica!

2018-03-09 – Mario and Gwenna successfully defended their two manuscripts at their halftime defence. Congrats!

2018-02-16 – Nina Hollfelder (co-supervised by Carina) successfully defended her thesis. Congrats Nina!

2018-02-03 – In the next few months we will be welcoming three new group members: Rickard Hammaren (PhD), Cesar Fortes-Lima (Postdoc) and Cecile Jolly (Research Engineer). Welcome!

2018-01-30 – Our News and Views item that we wrote about the ancient African genomes released last year, is published in the South African Journal  of Science (Link).

2018-01-26 – Our paper on differing levels of selection in the different genome regulatory regions is published in BMC Genomics (Link).

2017

2017-12-07 – Carina presents a talk and take part in a panel discussion “The Essence of Frontier Science for Inclusive Development” organised by the ERC and NRF at the South African Science forum 2017.

2017-11-13 – 2017-11-16 Carina and Mario goes on field trip to South Africa to report back on genetic results to study participants.

2017-11-03 – Carina presents a talk at the Third annual Symposium of the DFG Centre for Advanced Studies: Modern human origins and dispersal, Tübingen, Germany.

2017-10-16 – We are advertising three new positions in the group, a PhD, Postdoc and a Research engineer. Applications now closed

2017-09-28 – Our paper on southern African ancient genomes is published in Science (Link) and receive good media coverage.

2017-09-06 – Soon we will advertise two new positions in the group, for a PhD and Postdoc. The links to the advertisements will be posted as soon as they are available

2017-09-06 – Carina receive an ERC starting grant for the project: AfricanNeo, a project that aims to investigate the African Neolithic from a genetic perspective.

2017-08-21 to 2017-08-25 – Mario attends the popgen17 workshop at University of Copenhagen.

2017-08-24 – Our paper on the genetic history of Sudan and South Sudan is published in  PLoS Genetics.  Link

2017-08-17  – Carina presents a talk at the Sydney Brenner Institute in Johannesburg on ancient DNA in southern Africa

2017-08-13 to 2017-08-16  – Carina attends the 17th Biennial Congress of the Southern African Society for Human Genetics (SASHG 2017) in Durban (South Africa) and presents a keynote talk on the genetic history of Africa

2017-08-17  – Carina visit our collaborators, Koen Bostoen and Bernard Clist, at Ghent University and presents a talk on African history from a genetic perspective.

2017-06-05 – Our paper on ancient DNA genomes from southern Africa appears on  BioRxiv.  Link

2017-04-20 to 2017-06-01 – Armando Semo visit our group to work on a collaborative project with the Jorge Rocha Lab

2017-04-05 – Our paper on adaptation to infectious disease exposure in certain southern African San groups is published in Proc Royal Soc B.  Link

2017-04-19 to 2017-04-22  – Mario attends the 86th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in New Orleans and presents a poster on our collaborative work with Peter Ebbesen

2017-02-1 to 2017-0-28 –  Dhriti Sengupta visit our group to work on a collaborative project with Michele Ramsay’s group