The 81st In Silico Megabank Research Seminar will be held on Thursday, February 2, 2017. This Time, we will be welcoming Professor Fumio Tajima, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo as our lecturer, and he will be speaking on “A mathematical theory related to genetic variations at DNA-level ”.

・Date/Time: February 2 (Thursday) 3:30 pm‐5:00 pm
・Venue: Small Conference Room 2(3rd Floor), Tohoku Medical Megabank Building    http://www.megabank.tohoku.ac.jp/english/access/ 
・Title: A mathematical theory related to genetic variations at DNA-level
・Lecturer: Fumio Tajima（Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo） 

＊This lecture is transferable as a class in the medical research-related lecture course.  

・Abstract: Genetic variation within a population is maintained over time. Several decades ago, genetic variations were detected by the genetic polymorphism of blood group and proteins, but nowadays they are detected as DNA polymorphism by DNA sequencing. Natural selection and neutral theory have been proposed as the maintenance mechanism for genetic variations. The amount and patterns of genetic variations are determined by various factors such as the size of the population, mutation rate, natural selection, and group structure. Can we deduce the factors from the amount and the patterns of the genetic variations observed? This is a very important question.  In order to do so, the establishment of a statistical approach and mathematical theory for the analysis of the observation results is essential.  In this seminar, based on the research I have conducted until today, I will introduce the amount and patterns of genetic variations (DNA polymorphism) at DNA level which is expected to be detected in a simple model. 

・Organizer: Kazuharu Misawa, Masao Nagasaki