Since the dawn of humankind our ancestors have been through an incredibly complex and interesting journey. They experienced strange encounters with distant cousins (e.g. Neanderthals) and embarked on a journey to explore and settle every corner of the world. Their living environments were forever changing from climactic shifts to dietary changes, and the occasional epidemic. Such events have driven cultural changes and shaped our genetic diversity and health today. We will explore the impacts of this journey on our genes, how it influenced our genetic diversity, and how it even shaped our response to disease. In addition, we will see how evolutionary principles can help us improve disease diagnosis and drug discovery, and bridge the healthcare gap in under-represented communities.

Dr Yassine Souilmi is an evolutionary genomicist at The University of Adelaide. He specialises in utilising large-scale genomic analyses to address evolutionary and medical questions using modern and ancient DNA.