Study Reveals How Genetic Uniformity Affects Offspring Fertility for Generations

When it comes to the architecture of the human genome, it’s only a matter of time before harmful genes — genes that could compromise future generations — arise in a population. These mutations accumulate in the gene pool, primarily affected by a population’s size and practices like marrying within a small community. New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal provides rare direct evidence showing that increased homozygosity — meaning two identical alleles in a genome — leads to negative effects on fertility in a human population.

MEXUS-CONACYT Doctoral Fellowships Attract Talented Graduate Students

UC Davis leads its fellow campuses in enrollment through the UC MEXUS-CONACYT Doctoral Fellowship Program. One of the talented graduate students is Natalia Lopez Carranza in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, who is studying the evolution of marine invertebrates that date back more than 500 million years.