We are All Africans: Mitochondria, Maternal Phylogeny and Human Migration

The Department of Physics and Astronomy Colloquium: Prof. Gyan Bhanot, BioMaPS Institute and Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers University, to speak on "We are All Africans: Mitochondria, Maternal Phylogeny and Human Migration."

Abstract:
Mitochondria are cellular organelles of bacterial origin, responsible for energy production in Eukaryotic cells. They have a high mutation rate, do not recombine, and are maternally inherited. The mitochondrial lineage of modern humans can be traced to an African ancestor, the so-called "Mitochondrial Eve", who lived approximately 200,000 years ago. I will explain how one arrives at these results and discuss new methods to analyze mitochondrial sequences, which, applied to complete mitochondrial sequences, yields new detail about human migration events in the past 200,000 years. The talk will assume no prior knowledge of Biology.

Prof. Bhanot is a physicist by training.)

Ticket Information
Free

Event Sponsor
Physics and Astronomy, Manoa

More Information
John G. Learned, 956-2964, jgl@phys.hawaii.edu

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