Evie is a PhD student working at Anglia Ruskin University and Cambridge University. She has previously studied archaeology and biological anthropology and has worked in the commercial archaeology sector prior to her PhD. Her research focusses on human diversity in Madagascar. In partnership with researchers at the University of Antananarivo, Evie will collect new genetic and anthropometric data from married couples in Malagasy communities. These, and existing, data will be used to examine the settlement process of Madagascar to better understand the history of genetic admixture in the population.
The project will then explore how assortative mating and natural selection have contributed to the extensive diversity observed both within and between different communities on the island. As highly structured marital practices are a feature of Malagasy communities, this research will investigate how the interaction of caste-based social systems and assortative mating have forged Malagasy genetic, and phenotypic, diversity. In her fieldwork, Evie will also collect 3D facial photographs to study the genetic architecture of human face shape, with the aim of identifying genes that play a role in facial development.
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During the Covid-19 pandemic, U.K. policy-makers claimed to be "following the science". Many commentators objected that the government did not live up to this aim. Others worried that policy-makers ought not blindly "follow" science, because this involves an abdication of responsibility. In this talk, I consider a third, even more fundamental concern: that there is no such thing as "the" science. Drawing on the case of adolescent vaccination against Covid-19, I argue that the best that any scientific advisory group can do is to offer a partial perspective on reality. In turn, this has important implications for how we think about science and politics.
Proteins are the active molecules of life. However, most proteins do not work on their own in health or disease; a key challenge, therefore, is understanding how these molecules interact with each other to give rise to function or malfunction. This talk will outline our efforts to discover, understand and use the basic principles that drive protein assembly into larger scale structures and phases. I will discuss how controlling transitions between such phases can help us ameliorate biological malfunction when it occurs in disease, and well as develop new classes of functional materials.
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