Lluis Quintana-Murci

Lluis Quintana-Murci, Professor at the Collège de France, heads the Unit of Human Evolutionary Genetics at Institut Pasteur since 2007. He earned his Ph.D. in Population Genetics at the University of Pavia (Italy) and his MSc in Biology at the University of Barcelona (Spain). He has been Scientific Director of the Institut Pasteur in 2016-2017. His laboratory uses genomic data to infer the past demographic history of human populations and dissect the different forms in which natural selection act on the human genome, with a special interest in how pathogens have exerted selective pressures on human immunity genes. His team also correlates genetic and epigenetic variation in populations with different ancestries and lifestyles with immune response traits, to identify mechanisms that have been crucial for our past and present survival against infection. His laboratory combines molecular and population genetics approaches, with computational modelling and development of new statistical frameworks. Lluis Quintana-Murci has co-authored over 200 publications on fundamental population genetics as well as evolutionary genetics of infection, and published 12 book chapters and 1 book. He was a laureate of the European Research Council (ERC), and is a member of EMBO, the Academia Europaea and the French Academy of Sciences.