Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
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eshabandyopadhyay.bsky.social
Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
@eshabandyopadhyay.bsky.social
Postdoc in the Zaidi Lab @University of Minnesota (Twin Cities) | PhD @UChicago Human Genetics (Raghavan Lab) | Human pop gen, complex traits & aDNA 🧬 | 🇮🇳🇺🇸
Pinned
✨Thrilled to share that the first chapter of my Ph.D. thesis is NOW OUT in Science Advances! ✨🥳🎉 🧬. This couldn't have been possible without the support of everyone involved
@genscapelab.bsky.social, @nirajrai.bsky.social, ‪@cdelafc.bsky.social‬, @jaurban2204.bsky.social, @mootspoints.bsky.social
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
We sequenced #ancientRNA from an 18th-Century human lung and recovered a rhinovirus genome. Take a look at our preprint. Feedback welcome.
Excited to share our work on #AncientRNA from alcohol-preserved lungs, recovering the oldest human RNA virus genome (an 18th-century rhinovirus). Our study shows that viral RNA remnants persist in centuries-old tissue, opening new ways to study virus evolution and historical disease #Paleovirology🫁🦠
www.biorxiv.org
January 31, 2026 at 2:08 AM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
New preprint! and my first single-author paper, so bear with me.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Malaria population genetic studies have found some puzzling patterns: Ne estimates spanning orders of magnitude, genome-wide negative Tajima's D, and over a quarter of genes with πN/πS >1

1/n
Rare variation in malaria parasites biases population-genetic inference
Understanding how pathogens evolve is fundamental to disease control and is a basic question in evolutionary biology, yet pathogens with complex life cycles violate assumptions of classic evolutionary...
www.biorxiv.org
January 14, 2026 at 10:03 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
UMN Anthro PhD student Jaime Zolik and Prof. Maria Nieves Colón @mitopr.bsky.social were interviewed on Ep. 66 the @anthrobiology.bsky.social podcast about their aDNA research with community partners in Peru. Listen now: anthrobiology.com/episodes/

#umncla #umnproud
January 5, 2026 at 2:17 PM
Labsgiving + Diwali 2025 - Zaidi Lab 🥳✨
Our first labsgiving/Diwali celebration 🪔!
November 22, 2025 at 1:56 AM
✨Thrilled to share that the first chapter of my Ph.D. thesis is NOW OUT in Science Advances! ✨🥳🎉 🧬. This couldn't have been possible without the support of everyone involved
@genscapelab.bsky.social, @nirajrai.bsky.social, ‪@cdelafc.bsky.social‬, @jaurban2204.bsky.social, @mootspoints.bsky.social
October 30, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
Happy to share our recent ancient DNA based article.
Dynamic human admixture histories over the past ~1300 years at the northern Himalayan frontier | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Dynamic human admixture histories over the past ~1300 years at the northern Himalayan frontier
Ancient and present-day human genomes shed light on ~1300 years of genetic admixture and continuity in the northern Himalayas.
www.science.org
October 30, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
Come and check @eshabandyopadhyay.bsky.social super cool project now live in Science Advances! Glad to have contributed a bit into this fun project!
October 30, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
A hearty Denisovan stew ripe with stories of mixing and more mixing, even with a third more ‘archaic’ hominid.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A high-coverage genome from a 200,000-year-old Denisovan
Denisovans, an extinct sister group of Neandertals who lived in Eastern Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene, are known only from a handful of skeletal remains and limited genetic data, incl...
www.biorxiv.org
October 20, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
If you need more exciting news about Denisovans, check out our paper on Denisovan ancestry in modern humans through time, out today in Current Biology: www.cell.com/current-biol...! #Denisovan #ancientDNA
An early East Asian lineage with unexpectedly low Denisovan ancestry
Yang et al. study Denisovan ancestry in ancient and present-day humans. In contrast to other East Asians, genomic comparisons suggest that the Jomon derived most of their ancestry from a deep lineage…
www.cell.com
October 20, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
🎖️Congratulations to the ASHG 2025 Lifetime Achievement Awardee Harry (Hal) Dietz, MD, and Mentorship Awardee Carole Ober, PhD! Learn more about the award and their work here: www.ashg.org/membership/a... #ASHG25
October 15, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
We're excited to be recruiting an NIH funded postdoc to work in the Coop lab at UC Davis. We're specifically interested in candidates who are want to work at the intersection of human genetics, GWAS, and population genetics modeling. Please RT
October 15, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
We will be at #ASHG25 this year! Some presentations from our group, please stop by! :
October 14, 2025 at 3:11 AM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
Excited to present my poster, “Tissue-Related Heterogeneity in Genetic Architecture of mtDNA Copy Number” (Board 5081), on Wednesday at #ASHG2025 !
October 13, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
Excited to be presenting my poster “Residual Stratification and Increased Genetic Diversity in Multi-ancestry GWAS”, Board 1062T on Thursday, October 16 from 2:30pm-4:30pm at #ASHG2025!
October 13, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
PEQG website live! genetics-gsa.org/peqg-2026/
Homepage - 2026 Population, Evolutionary, and Quantitative Genetics Conference
Visit our website to learn more.
genetics-gsa.org
October 9, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
I want to try something again at #ASHG25 this year: I'll block some time on Thursday and Friday afternoons to meet with trainees who would be interested to chat on any topic.

I did this last year and it was great to meet a whole bunch of new people, at all career stages!
October 6, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
Excited to preprint our latest work (w/ Drew DeHaas, Zhibai Jia, Leo Speidel) on using ARGs for demographic inference. w/ applications using data from 1000 Genomes Project. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Inference of complex demographic history using composite likelihood based on whole-genome genealogies
Accurate parametric inference on complex demographic models is a continuing challenge in population genetics. Ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs) provide richer information than simple population ge...
www.biorxiv.org
October 8, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
🚨 Join us in Uppsala and the lab of @trstngnthr.bsky.social as a 2 year fully funded bioinformatics postdoc with all Swedish social benefits etc!🧪

The project involves modern and #aDNA 🧬 in humans and sheep 🐑 to study adaptation. Application deadline: Oct 21st

www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
Postdoctoral position in Population Genomics - Uppsala University
Postdoctoral position in Population Genomics, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University
www.uu.se
September 19, 2025 at 8:36 AM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
I totally recommend this position on @trstngnthr.bsky.social lab. Great place to do science, and amazing people to do it with! #aDNA 🧪 www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
Postdoctoral position in Population Genomics - Uppsala University
Postdoctoral position in Population Genomics, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University
www.uu.se
September 15, 2025 at 10:07 AM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
We're organizing a new CARTA symposium this November 7 on "Ancient DNA: New Revelations"! We have an amazing lineup of speakers who will showcase the biggest discoveries in ancient DNA over the past 5 years - and offer a sneak peek of what's next. Mark your calendars and don't miss it!
September 15, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
How many chromosomes can an animal have?

In our paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social we show that the Atlas blue butterfly has 229 chromosome pairs- the highest in diploid Metazoa! These arose by rapid autosome fragmentation while sex chromosomes stayed intact.
www.cell.com/current-biol...
Constraints on chromosome evolution revealed by the 229 chromosome pairs of the Atlas blue butterfly
The genome of the Atlas blue butterfly contains ten times more chromosomes than most butterflies, and more than any other known diploid animal. Wright et al. show that this extraordinary karyotype is ...
tinyurl.com
September 11, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
Excited to say we’re hiring 😊. We’re looking for a post-doc in ancient pathogen genomics to join our friendly supportive team in London at @ugiatucl.bsky.social. Start date January 2026.

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...
UCL – University College London
UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).
www.ucl.ac.uk
September 1, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
🚨JOB ALERT!🚨

Postdoc position at #CpgSthlm on Microtine Palaeogenomics!

Join our deep-time genomics project, funded by @erc.europa.eu, and help us explore lemming and vole evolution using ancient DNA from fossils spanning the last 2.6 million years 🐭🦴🧬

Apply here:
su.varbi.com/en/what:job/...
September 2, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Reposted by Esha Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D.
Thrilled to share our study sequencing genetic data from tropical mammoths 🏝️🦣. First DNA recovered from Columbian mammoths southern than USA shorturl.at/xjIvy. Thanks to all collaborators, you were key to this success! See below a fantastic note covering the paper by the great @rpocisv.bsky.social 👇
Columbian mammoth mitogenomes from Mexico uncover the species’ complex evolutionary history
Paleogenomic studies suggest that Mammuthus columbi derives from an ancient hybridization between Mammuthus primigenius and Mammuthus trogontherii. While its habitat spanned from North to Central Amer...
shorturl.at
August 29, 2025 at 2:06 AM