Gökberk Alagöz

Complex genetic variation in nearly complete human genomes - Nature Using sequencing and haplotype-resolved assembly of 65 diverse human genomes, complex regions including the major histocompatibility complex and centromeres are analysed.

Telomere-to-telomere DNA sequencing is set to transform the field of human genetics in coming years. For a flavour of what's coming, see this exciting work on nearly complete genomes of 65 individuals from diverse populations, out today in @nature.com by @glennislogsdon.bsky.social & colleagues. 👇🧬🧪

People always stop me in the street to ask: "Yoav, where are the disease-associated eQLTs? We found a lot in GTEx but we can't find anymore. Do you know where they are?"

(For the record, no one has ever asked me this, but it is a really good question!)

I think we know where they are.

Postdoc position opening in my group! Research projects: pangenomes for diverse organisms, genome evolution, biocomputing, language models. Please reach out if interested!

dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

Decoding DNA sequence-driven evolution of the human brain epigenome at cellular resolution - Nature Communications How genetic changes prior to the human-chimpanzee split contributed to human brain evolution remains unknown. Here, the authors address this by identifying open-chromatin regions divergent in various ...

Revealing ancestral evolutionary patterns of the human brain at cell-type resolution, through comparative genomic analysis of open-chromatin regions across apes, old world monkeys & new world monkeys. New integrative paper from @konopkalab.bsky.social in @natcomms.nature.com. 🧠🧬🧪

A mouse brain stereotaxic topographic atlas with isotropic 1-μm resolution - Nature A stereotaxic atlas of the whole mouse brain, based on a Nissl-stained cytoarchitecture dataset with isotropic 1-μm resolution, achieved through continuous micro-optical sectioning tomography, promises to be a versatile brainsmatics tool for studying the whole brain at single-cell level.

Nature research paper: A mouse brain stereotaxic topographic atlas with isotropic 1-μm resolution

https://go.nature.com/4knEz8q

🧬In Neolithic Çatalhöyük, family was built on social relations rather than blood ties.
Genetic analysis shows that over time, co-residents were no longer genetic relatives. Female subadults were buried with 5x more grave goods.
🔍A surprising story of Neolithic social life.

A new theme issue in #PhilTransB looks at how and why animal minds have evolved to be so different from one another, framing animal #cognition as a diverse set of solutions to life’s many challenges buff.ly/csMZa3R

Out-of-Anatolia: Cultural and genetic interactions during the Neolithic expansion in the Aegean West Anatolia has been a crucial yet elusive element in the Neolithic expansion from the Fertile Crescent to Europe. In this work, we describe the changing genetic and cultural landscapes of early Hol...

Happy to share our new study from my PhD on the spread of farming across Anatolia and into the Aegean and then into Europe. @compevohumang.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

👇🏽

Addressing missing context in regulatory variation across primate evolution In primates, loci associated with adaptive trait variation often fall in noncoding regions. Understanding the mechanisms linking these regulatory vari…

Check out our new review about addressing missing context in regulatory variation across primate evolution 🧬🐒 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Methods and applications for single-cell and spatial multi-omics Nature Reviews Genetics - In this Review, the authors discuss the latest advances in profiling multiple molecular modalities from single cells, including genomic, transcriptomic, epigenomic and...

Methods and applications for single-cell and spatial multi-omics go.nature.com/3GkzmzZ #Review by Katy Vandereyken, Alejandro Sifrim, @bernthie.bsky.social & Thierry Voet
Free to read here: rdcu.be/c6JjL

Our Primate Past Our Primate Past is a video interview series featuring leading experts in primatology, paleoanthropology, evolutionary biology, and conservation. Through accessible, time-stamped interviews, world-ren...

🎥 Just launched: Our Primate Past — a new YouTube channel featuring interviews with leading experts in primatology and biological anthropology. The first 3 interviews are uploaded, with new videos to be added every few days. Subscribe to stay updated!

I’ve been studying gene regulation in primates for over 20 years, and using RNA-seq since 2008 to compare expression across species. We thought we were being careful. We used curated orthologous exons to minimize alignment bias and focused on biologically meaningful comparisons.

We were wrong.

We are delighted to share our new preprint “The evolution of gene regulatory programs controlling gonadal development in primates” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This is the first ever confirmed skull of a Denisovan Finally, we can put a face on a Denisovan.

'Scientists discovered a new kind of human with its pinkie bone. Now we have a skull' www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...

Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal - Nature Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka...

1/5 Why do all non-Africans descended from a group that left Africa 50k ago? In @nature.com we model 120k years of human niche dynamics. From 70ka, a big expansion of the human niche in Africa likely equipped later OOA dispersals with a unique ecological flexibilty.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Great internship opportunities in our department if you are interested in neurodevelopment and brain organoids! 👇

M.Sc. internship: Using Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells and Neural Models to Explore the Genetics of Human Speech and Language www.mpi.nl/career-educa...

New posting for a Research Assistant in our division. Ideal position for recent graduate looking for experience in molecular neurobiology and microscopy. Team-oriented environment working across projects generating spatial transcriptomics data in human 🧠 tissue and human-derived neuronal cell models

#SpotSweeper is now published!

Check our journal club session summary of the pre-print version by @lahuuki.bsky.social

The new features @boyiguo.bsky.social + @mictott.bsky.social added in this revised manuscript enhance the use cases for #SpotSweeper: 👀 #VisiumHD data!

youtu.be/f72XcXmtkfw?...

👇👇🧠🧬My new lab is hiring an imaging-genetics Postdoc, exploring how genetic factors (e.g., genomics, transcriptomics) and environmental factors (e.g., early life stress) influence brain development, psychopathology, and neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., autism). I am happy to take any questions.

🚨Anyone want a job?🚨
We have two #postdocs up for grabs! 🧪
- cell developmental biology/#evodevo/#neuroevodevo
- bioinformatics and molecular biology
Both working on brain evolution in Heliconiini butterflies
Details below! Please repost 🙏 1/n

Huge congrats Zhiqiang! 🥳🥳

Professur für Archäologie des antiken Mittelmeerraumes und seiner Umwelt (W2)

Open position at @unileipzig.bsky.social for professor of archaeology of the antique Mediterranean! www.uni-leipzig.de/stellenaussc...

A catalog of ancient proxies for modern genetic variants https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.19.654975v1

Today in @nature.com , we report a spatial single-cell atlas of human cortical development, revealing surprisingly early specification of human cortical layers and areas.
We built an interactive browser to explore the spatial data: walshlab.org/research/cor...
Paper link below 👇

Thank you @stefanmilo.bsky.social for having us on your channel! :)

On May Day, we celebrate the historic victories of the labour movement, and honour those who continue to struggle for a better world today.

Individual variation in the chimpanzee arcuate fasciculus predicts vocal and gestural communication - Nature Communications Here, authors reveal the anatomy of the chimpanzee arcuate fasciculus predicts use of intentional, communicative gestures and sounds. The chimpanzee arcuate is not left-asymmetric at the population le...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Arcuate Fasciculus: Evolutionary Convergence in Marmosets and Humans The marmoset is a highly vocal platyrrhine monkey that shares key anatomical and functional features with humans, providing a unique opportunity to illuminate the phylogenetic origins of diverging con...

Possible neural convergence found between marmosets and humans for aspects of the arcuate fasciculus, a white matter tract often seen as critical to support species-specific communicative behavior (new preprint by @lingzhongfan.bsky.social and colleagues) 🧪🧠
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Join us for the first TIBBE seminar:
Brain size, neuron number and connectivity.
April 22, 2–3pm UTC

This event brings together 2 outstanding evolutionary neuroscientists who will present their work, followed by an interactive discussion with the audience:
crowdcast.io/c/brain-size...