Rasmus Nielsen

Nielsen Lab

Research Overview

Rasmus Nielsen's research focuses on statistical and computational aspects of evolutionary theory and genetics. One of the central problems he has been interested in is the molecular basis of evolutionary adaptation. What happens at the molecular levels as one species is transformed into another over evolutionary time? To address this question he has developed a number of computational methods and applied them to large scale genomic data, such as genomic comparisons of humans and chimpanzees. Rasmus Nielsen has also worked on statistical methods in other aspects of population genetics, medical genetics, phylogenetics, molecular ecology, and molecular evolution. He has hitherto primarily been teaching courses in Statistical Genomics, Bioinformatics, and Evolution. His students work on both applied and theoretical problems in population genetics, statistical genetics and evolution.

For more information see: http://www.evolutionarygenomics.dk.

Selected publications

Nielsen, R. 2005. Molecular signatures of natural selection. Ann. Rev. Genet. 39:197-218.

Nielsen, R., C. Bustamante, A.G. Clark, S. Glanowski, T.B. Sackton, M.J. Hubisz, A. Fledel-Alon, D.M. Tanenbaum, D. Civello, T.J. White, J.J. Sninsky, M.D. Adams, and M. Cargill. 2005. A scan for positively selected genes in the genomes of humans and chimpanzees. PLoS Biology 3(6): e170.

Williamson, S.H., M.J. Hubisz, A.G. Clark, B.A. Payseur, C.D. Bustamante, and R. Nielsen. 2007. Localizing recent adaptive evolution in the human genome. PLoS Genetics doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.0030090.eor.

Hey, J. and R. Nielsen. 2007. Integration within the Felsenstein equation for improved Markov chain Monte Carlo methods in population genetics. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 104: 2785-2790.