Pardis Sabeti

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Pardis Sabeti during the World Economic Forum 2008
Pardis Sabeti during the World Economic Forum 2008

Pardis C. Sabeti (born December 25, 1975) is an Iranian-American evolutionary geneticist, who developed an algorithm which helped to establish the effects of genetics on the evolution of human diseases.[1][2][3] Sabeti is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Systems Biology and Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. [4] She is rated 49th in Telegraph's world's Top 100 living geniuses.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Sabeti completed her undergraduate degree at MIT and continued her education at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, before returning to earn her medical degree from Harvard Medical School where she was only the third woman ever to graduate summa cum laude.[5] She has also received a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences.[5]

[edit] Research

Sabeti addressed the problem of telling whether a mutation is due to natural selection or just random. When humans are exposed to diseases, like malaria and Lassa fever, they evolve traits that resist those diseases, such as sickle cell trait. Biologists can tell from comparing DNA sequences in populations whether mutations were due to natural selection, but those methods wouldn't work for evolutionary changes during the last 10,000 years, when diseases like malaria arose.

Sabeti took advantage of the fact that genes on the same place in the chromosome are inherited together. If a particular variation is subject to natural selection, its frequency will increase, along with the frequency of genes that have hitchhiked along with it. She used her mathematics background to develop a test that would use this principle to tell whether recent changes were due to natural selection or just chance. She applied this test to malaria variants, and saw a "whopping signal" of positive selection, which she published in Nature. She later identified 2 genes, LARGE and DMD, that protect against Lassa fever, and show strong signals of natural selection in West Africans.[6]

Sabeti is also a guitarist and bass guitarist,[1] and is lead singer in the alt-rock band Thousand Days[2], although she hasn't had time to play recently while applying for a National Institutes of Health grant. She sleeps two hours a night in her office, in a sleeping bag under her desk.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Deen, Lango (2005-07-25). One-on-One with Pardis Sabeti. Science Spectrum Online. Retrieved on 2007-07-27.
  2. ^ a b Furman, Eric. Geniuses who will change your life. CNN.com. Retrieved on 2007-07-27.
  3. ^ Sabeti et al. (2007-10-18). Genome-wide detection and characterization of positive selection in human populations. Nature. Retrieved on 2007-12-25.
  4. ^ FAS Center for Systems Biology, Harvard University.
  5. ^ a b Davis, Nicole (2006-06-14). Broad scientist Pardis Sabeti receives prestigious research awards. Retrieved on 2007-10-12.
  6. ^ Profile: Pardis Sabeti; Picking up evolution's beat, Michael Balter, Science, 25 April 2008

[edit] External links

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