NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2011

本行动资助2011年度美国国家科学基金会生物学博士后研究奖学金，扩大参与。该奖学金支持奖学金获得者在主办实验室的研究和培训计划，该奖学金获得者还提出了扩大生物学参与的计划。Michael DeGiorgio的研究和培训计划的题目是“利用数学模型研究人类遗传变异的空间分布”。这项研究的主办机构是加州大学伯克利分校，赞助科学家是Rasmus Nielsen博士。这项研究有望更好地理解导致人类种群中当前遗传变异分布的过程。该研究计划包括通过开发和分析人类遗传历史模型，以及将统计技术应用于下一代人口序列数据，来测试关于现代人类起源的不同假设。此外，该研究员正在推导数学公式，以描述在人类进化史的不同模型下遗传变异的分布。这项研究的发现增加了对形成人类遗传变异空间分布的人口统计学过程的更多了解，使研究人员能够区分适应信号和人口统计学信号。培训目标包括学习从低覆盖率的下一代测序数据中进行群体遗传推断，并获得解释和理解进化的新视角。正在开发的新的计算工具正在向公众提供，并以开放获取的方式公布结果。更广泛的影响包括，通过伯克利生物学学者计划，在早期的科学训练中，为来自代表性不足群体的本科生提供研究经验，使他们接触到群体基因组研究、计算和研究的伦理含义。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2011, Broadening Participation. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow who also presents a plan to broaden participation in biology. The title of the research and training plan for this fellowship to Michael DeGiorgio is "Using mathematical models to study the spatial distribution of human genetic variation." The host institution for this research is University of California, Berkeley and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Rasmus Nielsen.The research promises a better understanding of the processes that led to the current distribution of genetic variation among human populations. The research plan includes testing different hypotheses of modern human origins by developing and analyzing models of human genetic history and applying statistical techniques to next-generation sequence data from human populations. Further, the Fellow is deriving mathematical formulas to describe the distribution of genetic variation under different models of human evolutionary history. Findings from this study add to greater knowledge of the demographic processes that shaped the spatial distribution of human genetic variation, enabling investigators to distinguish signals of adaptation from those of demography.The training objectives include learning to make population genetic inferences from low-coverage next-generation sequencing data and gaining new perspectives for interpreting and understanding evolution. The new computational tools being developed are being made available to the public and results published with open access. Broader impacts include research experience for undergraduate students from underrepresented groups early in their scientific training through the Berkeley Biology Scholars Program to expose them to population genomic research, computation, and the ethical implications of the research.