Genome Diversity and Diseases Division is home to numerous research activities, which revolve around the fundamental and applied studies of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is maternally-inherited genetic material crucial for phylogeny analysis and species identification, while nuclear DNA holds important individual genetic information from both parents which is passed down over generations. In our division, we employ both of them for population study and disease association study. Currently, there are three research groups in the lab who work on lifestyle-related diseases, molecular anthropology, and wildlife genetics projects.We work with wide range of biological samples from blood, serum, placenta tissue, 2000-year old bones, to the unexpected source of DNA, feces.
