Nancy Bird
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nancybird1.bsky.social
Nancy Bird
@nancybird1.bsky.social
Human evolutionary and population genetics | post-doc in the Hellenthal group at UCL
https://hellenthal-group-ucl.github.io/hellenthal-group/
Reposted by Nancy Bird
Great to have Priya Moorjani visit UGI and give a talk on inferring Neanderthal ancestry in ancient individuals, and to share a bit about her work on Indian genetics, including insights into the evolution of lactase persistence.
November 12, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Nancy Bird
Great to have Dr Hrushikesh Loya give a fantastic talk on his tool Ghostbusters: A Genome-Wide Genealogical Approach to Uncovering Hidden Admixture Events in Human Evolution 👻
October 28, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Nancy Bird
Excited to share our new preprint🙌
It's the first human WGS study in Sudan. We uncover one of the strongest selection signals to date, pointing to post-admixture adaptation to malaria in Copts. Huge thanks to all co-authors. @aidaandres.bsky.social @jgarcia-cal.bsky.social @ebosch1972.bsky.social
Sudan's complex genetic admixture history drives adaptation to malaria in Sudanese Copts https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.01.25334828v1
September 3, 2025 at 8:24 AM
Reposted by Nancy Bird
📢The Annals of Human Genetics marks 100 years!🎉

Our Centenary Special Issue reflects on the journal’s history while celebrating recent advances and current investigations in human genetics, from statistical #genetics to #genomic medicine.

🔗 Read here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14691809...
August 18, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Reposted by Nancy Bird
A difficulty in scrutinising ancient DNA from the outside is that the original methods are discussed in arcane terms in separate papers cast across the innumerable winds of scientific publishing. Here are 2 papers which attempt to discuss collections of common methods with plainer language.
Two useful new reviews on ancestry inference in population genetics:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
July 18, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Check out our recent review 'Power and Limitations of Inferring Genetic Ancestry'- what do we even mean by the term 'genetic ancestry' and what do commonly-used methods actually tell us?
An Early View: Dr @nancybird1.bsky.social , Prof @turiking.bsky.social, & Prof Hellenthal examine the methodological advances and interpretive limits of genetic ancestry inference. The authors emphasize the need for a stronger focus on conveying uncertainty to mitigate risks of over-interpretation.
Power and Limitations of Inferring Genetic Ancestry
Background The recent emergence of technologies that capture and analyse genetic variation patterns obtained from a person's DNA sample has led to numerous academic and commercial endeavours to infe...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
July 26, 2025 at 2:27 AM
Reposted by Nancy Bird
New review paper led by @nancybird1.bsky.social which unpacks the complexities of genetic ancestry and examines what genetic data can and cannot tell us 🧬 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
July 17, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by Nancy Bird
UGI at the Forbidden City #SMBE2025

@cednotsed.bsky.social, Cameron Ferguson, @nancybird1.bsky.social
July 21, 2025 at 9:45 AM
Reposted by Nancy Bird
You can catch UGI post-doc @nancybird1.bsky.social presenting at @official-smbe.bsky.social #SMBE next week on her work: "A flexible and efficient new model to infer multiple admixture dates via joint analyses of modern and/or ancient individuals".
July 17, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Reposted by Nancy Bird
✨🧬 Sharing our UCL Genetics Institute starter pack of researchers, friends and alumni past and present 🧬 ✨

#UGISKY
(DM us to be added)

go.bsky.app/Gw1NqRa
July 9, 2025 at 1:25 PM
www.ucl.ac.uk/biosciences/...
Article on the workshop and conference posted here!
July 7, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Nancy Bird
#SMBE2025 Symposium 27: Population genetics through time session B

🔗 smbe2025.scimeeting.cn/en/web/program/25070
July 5, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Had a chance to present my research on Cameroonian genetic history last Thursday at the conference 'From Genes to Nationhood' in Yaoundé, organised with the Cameroonian ministry for Youth Affairs and Civil Education!
July 1, 2025 at 9:02 AM
Had an amazing time running a workshop at the University of Yaoundé I Medical School these past few days! We started at statistics and population genetics and moved on to genome-wide association studies with both lectures and practicals 🧬🌍📊 thanks to everyone who came!
June 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Nancy Bird
Excited to announce our paper on ancient Borrelia genomes is finally out! 🦠💀We document the evolutionary history of louse-borne relapsing fever, published today in @science.org‬ with @lucyvandorp.bsky.social and @pontus-skoglund.bsky.social #aDNA 🏺🧪🧬
Main findings and paper below: 🧵⬇️
May 22, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Reposted by Nancy Bird
Nancy Bird

New method infers admixture dates per individual, revealing multiple waves of ancient intermixing. Applied to Neanderthal and Neolithic Europe data, it uncovers finer migration patterns previously overlooked by grouping individuals. Compatible with tools like GLOBETROTTER.

#HumanEvo25
April 29, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Reposted by Nancy Bird
Can we estimate when different populations admixed, and howcmsny times they did ? @nancybird1.bsky.social has a really cool new approach 🥰!!
#HumanEvo25
April 29, 2025 at 12:02 PM