Amy Goldberg, Duke University
Title: Evolutionary perspectives on malaria: humans, primates, and the parasites we share
Abstract: Classically called one of the strongest selective pressures in human evolution, I will discuss new computational methods we are developing to understand the ongoing host and pathogen pressures shaping malaria. First, leveraging the added information that distributions of genetic ancestry provide, we infer rapid adaptation to P. vivax malaria in humans from the islands of Cabo Verde. We describe a suite of tools that are broadly applicable to study post-admixture adaptation. Then, we consider the broader spectrum of malaria parasites across primates to begin to ask why some impact human evolution and disease burden more than others. To do this, we will first need new population-genetic simulation methods to interpret patterns of variation in malaria parasites given their complex lifecycles.