· 15:00 Helsinki time
Sexual antagonism in humans
Speaker: Jon A. Harper, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki
Abstract
Genes that confer a beneficial effect when expressed in one sex and a deleterious effect when expressed in the other are known as sexually antagonistic genes. Such genes are central to many models predicting both maintenance of genetic diversity and evolution of sexual dimorphism. Despite this apparent importance, there appeared to be no examples in humans. In this talk, I shall describe a search across evolutionary and biomedical literature which uncovered the first examples of sexually antagonistic genes described in humans, which were previously obscured by differences in terminology. These genes were found to follow predictions made from evolutionary models. This study highlights the importance of clear inter-disciplinary communication and opened a new avenue of study for sexual conflict in humans, followed by a number of further studies.
About the speaker
Jon is a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki. He began his research career at the University of Sussex in England, where he studied the evolution and resolution of sexual conflict. He then went on to study recombination in budding yeast, applying the evolutionary principles and bioinformatic skills he learned to molecular genetics. He currently studies the genetics of human disease using FinnGen biobank data, working as part of the Sex Differences in Immunity consortium.