Maria Pala

Biography

I graduated in Natural Sciences (Laurea, MSc equivalent) from the University of Sassari, Italy, in 2003 (final Mark 110/110 cum laude). In 2003 I moved to the Molecular Genetics Institute, CNR of Pavia, Italy, where I worked for one year as a research assistant under the supervision of Prof. L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza on the project “Creation of a cell line bank of the Italian population”. On January 2008 I obtained my Ph.D. in “Genetic and Biomolecular Science” (University of Pavia) under the supervision of Prof. Antonio Torroni. Dissertation title: "Mitochondrial DNA: a female perspective in human evolution". During my Ph.D. I was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship for "Early-Stage Training in Advanced Genetic Analysis" programme at the University of Leeds. Supervisor: Professor Martin Richards. Between 2008–2009 I worked, first as a Research Assistant and then as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, at the Laboratory of Human Genetics, Department of Genetics and Microbiology, University of Pavia, under the supervision of Prof. Antonio Torroni. In 2009 I moved to the University of Leeds, UK, as a Newton Post-Doctoral Fellow, working on the project “Origins and expansion of mitochondrial DNA haplogroup HV and the modern human settlement of West Eurasia”, under the supervision of Prof. Martin Richards, Archaeogenetics Laboratory, Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology (IICB), University of Leeds, Leeds, UK. In 2011, I was appointed by the University of Huddersfield as a Senior Research Fellow in Archaeogenetics.

Research Interest

During my research career I’ve worked mainly on the analysis of human mitochondrial DNA variability in Western Eurasia with particular focus on the Late Glacial and postglacial repopulation of Europe. This line of research led us to identify the first genetic evidence for an expansion from the hypothetical Italian glacial refugium that had been proposed on archaeological grounds. The paper "Mitochondrial haplogroup U5b3: a distant echo of the Epipaleolithic in Italy and the legacy of the early Sardinians" (Pala et al. 2009) was published as a report in The American Journal of Human Genetics. Following this, in 2012, the analysis of J and T sister haplogroups allowed us to propose, for the first time, the idea that the Near East region also played an important role in the re-peopling of Europe after the Ice Age – which had not been recognised previously by either archaeologists or geneticists. According to our study, the stream of movements from the Near East into Europe was not limited to the canonical Upper Palaeolithic (when Europe was firstly occupied by Homos sapiens) and Neolithic (when agriculture was introduced from the Fertile Crescent) migrations, but was also significant during the Late Glacial and postglacial periods. Therefore according to our new interpretation the Near East was an additional major glacial refugial source from which human groups expanded into Europe when climatic conditions improved after the Last Glacial Maximum. The paper "Mitochondrial DNA Signals of Late Glacial Re-colonization of Europe from Near Eastern Refugia" (Pala et al. 2012) was also published in The American Journal of Human Genetics. This paper was among the four selected by the Editors for the ( "This Month in The Journal" section ); it was highlighted as "the most downloaded paper from our website" on the Journal’s Facebook page on May 23rd 2012, and even commended by the senior editor. Although European mitochondrial DNA variation has been my primary topic of research during these past years, my interests have varied more widely. I’ve collaborated on several projects regarding Africa ("The mtDNA legacy of the Levantine Early Upper Palaeolithic in Africa", Science 2006), the peopling of the Americas ("Distinctive Paleo-Indian migration routes from Beringia marked by two rare mtDNA haplogroups", Current Biology 2009; featured on the cover of the January 13th issue) and of Asia ("Mitochondrial and Y-chromosome diversity of the Tharus (Nepal): a reservoir of genetic variation", BMC Evol. Biol. 2009). I’ve also collaborated on the analysis of mitochondrial variability in domesticated animals such as cattle ("Mitochondrial genomes of extinct aurochs survive in domestic cattle", Current Biology 2008; featured in the cover of the February 26th issue) and investigations into the link between human mitochondrial variability and disease ("Mitochondrial DNA background modulates the assembly kinetics of OXPHOS complexes in a cellular model of mitochondrial disease", Hum. Mol. Genet. 2008).