Rosi Fregel
@rfregel.bsky.social
Professor of Genetics and PI of the Paleogenomics Group at ULL (Canary Islands, Spain) working on ancient DNA of the Canarian human populations and more :)
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
Recovering DNA from ancient plants is tough, but this new method makes it work! A new extraction workflow improves recovery of fragmented endogenous plant aDNA while preserving library complexity and read yield.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#MetagenomicsMonday #SPAAM #aDNA #archaeobotany
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#MetagenomicsMonday #SPAAM #aDNA #archaeobotany
Optimizing ancient DNA recovery from archaeological plant seeds - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Optimizing ancient DNA recovery from archaeological plant seeds
www.nature.com
December 8, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Recovering DNA from ancient plants is tough, but this new method makes it work! A new extraction workflow improves recovery of fragmented endogenous plant aDNA while preserving library complexity and read yield.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#MetagenomicsMonday #SPAAM #aDNA #archaeobotany
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#MetagenomicsMonday #SPAAM #aDNA #archaeobotany
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
Ancient metagenomics people might also be interested in the authentication and visualization toolkit that we wrote to do this. Just published a few days ago!
GitHub
github.com/bdesanctis/b...
Paper
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
GitHub
github.com/bdesanctis/b...
Paper
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
GitHub - bdesanctis/bamdam: A post-mapping authentication toolkit for ancient metagenomics
A post-mapping authentication toolkit for ancient metagenomics - bdesanctis/bamdam
github.com
December 6, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Ancient metagenomics people might also be interested in the authentication and visualization toolkit that we wrote to do this. Just published a few days ago!
GitHub
github.com/bdesanctis/b...
Paper
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
GitHub
github.com/bdesanctis/b...
Paper
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
What's living in the dark, isolated subglacial waters underneath the Antarctic ice sheet, and why should we care?
Read our new preprint to find out! It combines ancient DNA, microbiology, hydrology and geochemistry. 🦠🇦🇶🪨🧬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Read our new preprint to find out! It combines ancient DNA, microbiology, hydrology and geochemistry. 🦠🇦🇶🪨🧬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Ancient metagenomics reveals subglacial microbiomes driven by oxygen availability
Beneath Earth's glaciers and ice sheets lies an aquatic realm where ice, water, rock, and microbial life interact, driving chemical reactions that can collectively influence the global carbon cycle, p...
www.biorxiv.org
December 6, 2025 at 1:21 PM
What's living in the dark, isolated subglacial waters underneath the Antarctic ice sheet, and why should we care?
Read our new preprint to find out! It combines ancient DNA, microbiology, hydrology and geochemistry. 🦠🇦🇶🪨🧬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Read our new preprint to find out! It combines ancient DNA, microbiology, hydrology and geochemistry. 🦠🇦🇶🪨🧬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
Lovely is the right adjective. Writing this was so enjoyable in the company of @acstone.bsky.social @blevinske.bsky.social and Verena Schuenemann. Hope you enjoy.
Lovely to work with @blevinske.bsky.social, @paleogenomics.bsky.social & Verena Schuenemann on " Ancient DNA insights into diverse pathogens and their hosts"! Read it at rdcu.be/eSVPN
Ancient DNA insights into diverse pathogens and their hosts
Nature Reviews Genetics - Ancient DNA techniques are being applied to study increasingly diverse pathogens of the past. The authors review the latest insights into pathogen–host coevolution,...
rdcu.be
December 3, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Lovely is the right adjective. Writing this was so enjoyable in the company of @acstone.bsky.social @blevinske.bsky.social and Verena Schuenemann. Hope you enjoy.
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
Lovely to work with @blevinske.bsky.social, @paleogenomics.bsky.social & Verena Schuenemann on " Ancient DNA insights into diverse pathogens and their hosts"! Read it at rdcu.be/eSVPN
Ancient DNA insights into diverse pathogens and their hosts
Nature Reviews Genetics - Ancient DNA techniques are being applied to study increasingly diverse pathogens of the past. The authors review the latest insights into pathogen–host coevolution,...
rdcu.be
December 3, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Lovely to work with @blevinske.bsky.social, @paleogenomics.bsky.social & Verena Schuenemann on " Ancient DNA insights into diverse pathogens and their hosts"! Read it at rdcu.be/eSVPN
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
Our new ancient DNA paper has just been published!
We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes.
Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes.
Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Homo sapiens-specific evolution unveiled by ancient southern African genomes - Nature
The genomes of 28 ancient southern African individuals dated to between 10,200 and 150 years before present offer insights into the evolution of Homo sapiens.
www.nature.com
December 3, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Our new ancient DNA paper has just been published!
We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes.
Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes.
Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
WOW❗🤯
The amount and quality of the abstracts we've received have completely blown us away! More than 300 abstracts from researchers at all levels and from 33 countries.
We will communicate the selected talks and open registration soon 👉 icp2026.palaeogenomics.org
#ICP2026 will be UNMISSABLE 😍💪
The amount and quality of the abstracts we've received have completely blown us away! More than 300 abstracts from researchers at all levels and from 33 countries.
We will communicate the selected talks and open registration soon 👉 icp2026.palaeogenomics.org
#ICP2026 will be UNMISSABLE 😍💪
December 2, 2025 at 9:52 AM
WOW❗🤯
The amount and quality of the abstracts we've received have completely blown us away! More than 300 abstracts from researchers at all levels and from 33 countries.
We will communicate the selected talks and open registration soon 👉 icp2026.palaeogenomics.org
#ICP2026 will be UNMISSABLE 😍💪
The amount and quality of the abstracts we've received have completely blown us away! More than 300 abstracts from researchers at all levels and from 33 countries.
We will communicate the selected talks and open registration soon 👉 icp2026.palaeogenomics.org
#ICP2026 will be UNMISSABLE 😍💪
XIX Jornadas de Genética ULL! Este año serán el 29 de diciembre. Aula 1 de la Sección de Biología. Este es el cartel, con los temas de las charlas de este año. Te esperamos!!
November 29, 2025 at 7:55 PM
XIX Jornadas de Genética ULL! Este año serán el 29 de diciembre. Aula 1 de la Sección de Biología. Este es el cartel, con los temas de las charlas de este año. Te esperamos!!
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
What's that? 5 ancient doggy papers in 10 days is too many dogs?
Can I interest you in some cats?
Perhaps a complete retelling of cat domestication, dispersal, and replacement across Eurasia?
As you wish!
Science
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Cell Genomics
www.cell.com/cell-genomic...
Can I interest you in some cats?
Perhaps a complete retelling of cat domestication, dispersal, and replacement across Eurasia?
As you wish!
Science
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Cell Genomics
www.cell.com/cell-genomic...
The dispersal of domestic cats from North Africa to Europe around 2000 years ago
The domestic cat (Felis catus) descends from the African wildcat Felis lybica lybica. Its global distribution alongside humans testifies to its successful adaptation to anthropogenic environments. Unc...
www.science.org
November 28, 2025 at 12:40 PM
What's that? 5 ancient doggy papers in 10 days is too many dogs?
Can I interest you in some cats?
Perhaps a complete retelling of cat domestication, dispersal, and replacement across Eurasia?
As you wish!
Science
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Cell Genomics
www.cell.com/cell-genomic...
Can I interest you in some cats?
Perhaps a complete retelling of cat domestication, dispersal, and replacement across Eurasia?
As you wish!
Science
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Cell Genomics
www.cell.com/cell-genomic...
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
Cool work from my colleagues @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social just dropped! Merlin Szymanski, @janetk.bsky.social et al. developed quicksand, a fast, accurate and beautifully designed Nextflow pipeline for taxonomic classification of mammalian mtDNA from ancient sediment DNA. doi.org/10.1093/molb...
quick analysis of sedimentary ancient DNA using quicksand
Abstract. Ancient DNA extracted from the sediments of archaeological sites (sedaDNA) can provide fine-grained information about the composition of past eco
doi.org
November 28, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Cool work from my colleagues @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social just dropped! Merlin Szymanski, @janetk.bsky.social et al. developed quicksand, a fast, accurate and beautifully designed Nextflow pipeline for taxonomic classification of mammalian mtDNA from ancient sediment DNA. doi.org/10.1093/molb...
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
I taught (and co-taught) a course on human population genetics from 2000-2024. Having retired, I'm now making all the course materials public: github.com/alanrogers/p... #popgen #evbio
GitHub - alanrogers/popgen: A course on population genetics
A course on population genetics. Contribute to alanrogers/popgen development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
November 27, 2025 at 7:10 PM
I taught (and co-taught) a course on human population genetics from 2000-2024. Having retired, I'm now making all the course materials public: github.com/alanrogers/p... #popgen #evbio
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
Despite my insomnia, I'm very happy to share our preprint: a multi-disciplinary assessment of a sheep mass mortality event from ~18th century France. We report the first ancient sheeppox virus (think smallpox) and the Taenia hydatigena (nasty roundworm) genomes.
#aDNA
#aDNA
Evidence of sheeppox in 17th-19th century France: a multi-disciplinary investigation of a sheep mass mortality assemblage
Epizootic outbreaks posed major threats to food security, economic stability, and animal welfare in past communities. While these events and their impacts are well documented in historical records, ve...
www.biorxiv.org
November 26, 2025 at 6:33 AM
Despite my insomnia, I'm very happy to share our preprint: a multi-disciplinary assessment of a sheep mass mortality event from ~18th century France. We report the first ancient sheeppox virus (think smallpox) and the Taenia hydatigena (nasty roundworm) genomes.
#aDNA
#aDNA
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
The middle-aged man had craniosynostosis -- premature fusion of three skull sutures -- which was typically fatal in childhood in the Medieval period. 🏺🧪
'I had never seen a skull like this before': Medieval Spanish knight who died in battle had a rare genetic condition, study finds
The extremely long skull of a medieval knight points to an underlying genetic condition.
www.livescience.com
November 25, 2025 at 12:54 PM
The middle-aged man had craniosynostosis -- premature fusion of three skull sutures -- which was typically fatal in childhood in the Medieval period. 🏺🧪
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
@alexgilardet.bsky.social et al. recovered ancient DNA from bovine bones in the Denisova cave to characterize Pleistocene bovine diversity, identifying the Altai Mountains as a hotspot for bovine diversity.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf206
#genome #evolution #aDNA #denisova
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf206
#genome #evolution #aDNA #denisova
Paleogenomics Reveals a Loss of Bovine Lineages in Mid-latitude Asia Over the Last 200,000 Years
Abstract. Bovines have a complex yet poorly understood evolutionary history that is characterized by admixture and diversity loss during the Late Pleistoce
doi.org
November 24, 2025 at 9:31 AM
@alexgilardet.bsky.social et al. recovered ancient DNA from bovine bones in the Denisova cave to characterize Pleistocene bovine diversity, identifying the Altai Mountains as a hotspot for bovine diversity.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf206
#genome #evolution #aDNA #denisova
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf206
#genome #evolution #aDNA #denisova
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
Exploration of hanging coffin customs and the bo people in China through comparative genomics 🧬☠️🇨🇳 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Exploration of hanging coffin customs and the bo people in China through comparative genomics - Nature Communications
Hanging Coffins were a mortuary tradition practiced in southern China and Southeast Asia. Here, the authors show that different groups of ancient Hanging Coffin practitioners are genetically related, ...
www.nature.com
November 22, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Exploration of hanging coffin customs and the bo people in China through comparative genomics 🧬☠️🇨🇳 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
I'm thrilled to announce, together with @RajivBoscoloAgostini and @jack-the-villain.bsky.social, that our paper entitled "Fifteen millennia of human mitogenome evolution in Sicily" is out now in Science Advances!
Check it out!
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Check it out!
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Fifteen millennia of human mitogenome evolution in Sicily
Mitogenomes spanning 15 millennia reveal a genetic discontinuity within Sicily and continuous gene flow from Eurasia and Africa.
doi.org
November 14, 2025 at 7:52 PM
I'm thrilled to announce, together with @RajivBoscoloAgostini and @jack-the-villain.bsky.social, that our paper entitled "Fifteen millennia of human mitogenome evolution in Sicily" is out now in Science Advances!
Check it out!
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Check it out!
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
🚨 New paper alert 🚨
Our research, published today in Science, reveals remarkable concordance between human and dog genomes through time, highlighting how deeply intertwined our evolutionary histories have been over the past 11,000 years.
🔗 Read the full paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Our research, published today in Science, reveals remarkable concordance between human and dog genomes through time, highlighting how deeply intertwined our evolutionary histories have been over the past 11,000 years.
🔗 Read the full paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Genomic evidence for the Holocene codispersal of dogs and humans across Eastern Eurasia
As the first domestic species, dogs likely dispersed with different cultural groups during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed 73 ancient dog genomes, including 17 ...
www.science.org
November 13, 2025 at 10:48 PM
🚨 New paper alert 🚨
Our research, published today in Science, reveals remarkable concordance between human and dog genomes through time, highlighting how deeply intertwined our evolutionary histories have been over the past 11,000 years.
🔗 Read the full paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Our research, published today in Science, reveals remarkable concordance between human and dog genomes through time, highlighting how deeply intertwined our evolutionary histories have been over the past 11,000 years.
🔗 Read the full paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
Check out our paper, we now included a comparison between glimse1 and glimpse2!
Our paper on imputation of ancient goat genomes is now available at GBE - congratulations to @jolijnerven.bsky.social #aDNA
Inferring Domestic Goat Demographic History Through Ancient Genome Imputation
Abstract. Goats were among the earliest managed animals, making them a natural model to explore the genetic consequences of domestication. However, a chall
academic.oup.com
November 11, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Check out our paper, we now included a comparison between glimse1 and glimpse2!
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
Become our colleague! - 2yr Postdoctoral position in Palaeo-population genomics at the Center for the Human Past (UU) @humanpastcenter.bsky.social 🧪
Great place to work at (ok, I am biased), integration with archaeologists and linguists + pretty flexible research topic
www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
Great place to work at (ok, I am biased), integration with archaeologists and linguists + pretty flexible research topic
www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
Postdoctoral position in Palaeo-population genomics at the Center for the Human Past - Uppsala University
Postdoctoral position in Palaeo-population genomics at the Center for the Human Past, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University
www.uu.se
November 11, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Become our colleague! - 2yr Postdoctoral position in Palaeo-population genomics at the Center for the Human Past (UU) @humanpastcenter.bsky.social 🧪
Great place to work at (ok, I am biased), integration with archaeologists and linguists + pretty flexible research topic
www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
Great place to work at (ok, I am biased), integration with archaeologists and linguists + pretty flexible research topic
www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
Our paper on imputation of ancient goat genomes is now available at GBE - congratulations to @jolijnerven.bsky.social #aDNA
Inferring Domestic Goat Demographic History Through Ancient Genome Imputation
Abstract. Goats were among the earliest managed animals, making them a natural model to explore the genetic consequences of domestication. However, a chall
academic.oup.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Our paper on imputation of ancient goat genomes is now available at GBE - congratulations to @jolijnerven.bsky.social #aDNA
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
Are you interested in human evolution? Would you like to work in palaeoproteomics 👩🏻🔬 and live in Copenhagen 🇩🇰🚴🏽♀️? So, apply to these advertised positions. More info 👇
⚠️Just a quick reminder, there are a few days left to apply for these two positions in #palaeoproteomics.
I'm hiring!⭐ As part of the DFF Sapere Aude-funded project MiddleEarth, I am looking for 1 postdoctoral researcher and 1 research assistant.
November 5, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Are you interested in human evolution? Would you like to work in palaeoproteomics 👩🏻🔬 and live in Copenhagen 🇩🇰🚴🏽♀️? So, apply to these advertised positions. More info 👇
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
Are you obsessed with archaeological or historical questions and easily get into coding?
Or a computational scientist that want to understand biology and disease evolution, and curious about the ancient past?
If you have these or other burning questions that fits into our programme, apply below!
Or a computational scientist that want to understand biology and disease evolution, and curious about the ancient past?
If you have these or other burning questions that fits into our programme, apply below!
PhD-opening in our ancient genomics lab this year, apply below!
We work on:
📜 Genetic history integrated with archaeology and history
📈 Natural selection and trait genetics
🐺 Evolutionary genomics of dogs and wolves
🦠 Ancient pathogen genomics
💀 Hominin evolution and ancient proteomics
We work on:
📜 Genetic history integrated with archaeology and history
📈 Natural selection and trait genetics
🐺 Evolutionary genomics of dogs and wolves
🦠 Ancient pathogen genomics
💀 Hominin evolution and ancient proteomics
Motivated graduates with backgrounds in biological or biomedical sciences, physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering and/or computer science are invited to apply to our 4-year fully funded PhD programme.
Apply by 05 November 2025
www.crick.ac.uk/careers-and-...
Apply by 05 November 2025
www.crick.ac.uk/careers-and-...
October 27, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Are you obsessed with archaeological or historical questions and easily get into coding?
Or a computational scientist that want to understand biology and disease evolution, and curious about the ancient past?
If you have these or other burning questions that fits into our programme, apply below!
Or a computational scientist that want to understand biology and disease evolution, and curious about the ancient past?
If you have these or other burning questions that fits into our programme, apply below!
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
DNA from Napoleon’s 1812 army identifies the pathogens likely responsible for the army’s demise during their Russian retreat. www.cell.com/current-biol...
Nicolás Rascovan & colleagues
@currentbiology.bsky.social
Nicolás Rascovan & colleagues
@currentbiology.bsky.social
October 24, 2025 at 3:00 PM
DNA from Napoleon’s 1812 army identifies the pathogens likely responsible for the army’s demise during their Russian retreat. www.cell.com/current-biol...
Nicolás Rascovan & colleagues
@currentbiology.bsky.social
Nicolás Rascovan & colleagues
@currentbiology.bsky.social
Reposted by Rosi Fregel
A hearty Denisovan stew ripe with stories of mixing and more mixing, even with a third more ‘archaic’ hominid.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A high-coverage genome from a 200,000-year-old Denisovan
Denisovans, an extinct sister group of Neandertals who lived in Eastern Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene, are known only from a handful of skeletal remains and limited genetic data, incl...
www.biorxiv.org
October 20, 2025 at 7:07 PM
A hearty Denisovan stew ripe with stories of mixing and more mixing, even with a third more ‘archaic’ hominid.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...