Magdalena Gayà Vidal
Auxiliary Researcher
Human Evolutionary Genetics
CIBIO, Centro de Investigacao em Biodiversidade e Recursos Geneticos
Portugal
Biography
" Iam a biologist interested in human evolution and history. My PhD (Universitat de Barcelona & Université Toulouse III) was focused on two Native American populations from Bolivia. I investigated the genetic relationships between Aymaras and Quechuas from the Altiplano by genotyping different kinds of markers and integrating the genetic results in a linguistic and historical context. Afterwards I did an MSc in Bioinformatics and I carried out the 2nd year project in an Evolutionary Genomics group (IMIM) searching for signatures of positive selection in the human lineage. From 2012 to 2014 I did a postdoc (IBB-Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) working on a project focused on human polymorphic inversions where I did the nucleotide variation analysis. In December 2014, I started working in the group of Prof Jorge Rocha (CIBIO/InBIO) to study populations of Southern Angola in order to address several questions regarding the demographic history of this region."
Research Interest
Human evolution and history
Publications
-
Pinto JC, Oliveira S, Teixeira S, Martins D, Fehn AM, Aco T, Gaya-Vidal M, Rocha J (2016) Food and pathogen adaptations in the Angolan Namib desert: Tracing the spread of lactase persistence and human African trypanosomiasis resistance into southwestern Africa. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 161(3): 436-447.
