Yafei Mao：Mechanisms of Structural Variations and Gene Tree Discordance in Primate Evolution and Disease

On June 10th, Yafei Mao from Bio-X Institutes at Shanghai Jiao Tong University presented a lecture titled "Mechanisms of Structural Variants and Gene Tree Discordance in Primate Evolution and Diseases” at Room 705, School of Medicine. The session was chaired by Professor Qiqi Zhou and attracted the attention of students and faculty from various departments, sparking lively discussions.

Structural variations and incomplete lineage sorting play crucial roles in primate evolution and are often closely associated with diseases. However, research on structural variations and incomplete lineage sorting in primates remains insufficient. Therefore, this study compared genomes across various primate species and discovered millions of previously unidentified structural variations. Some of these variations result in gene loss, alterations in gene structure, or gene duplications. These structural variations elucidate adaptive evolution during primate evolution and contribute to our understanding of human disease origins.

Yafei Mao, mentored by Professors Noriyuki Satoh and Evan Economo, focused on studying the mechanisms of gene duplications and gene tree incongruence in evolution. After graduating, in 2019, he joined Professor Evan Eichler's laboratory at the University of Washington for postdoctoral research, concentrating on the biological mechanisms of structural variations in adaptive evolution and human diseases. His primary research findings, published as first or corresponding author, have appeared in journals such as Nature, Nature Methods, Current Biology, iScience, Molecular Ecology Resources, attracting considerable attention within the scientific community.