Project description
Ancient DNA and evolutionary roots of modern illness
Cancer, dementia, and heart disease are the defining health crises of our time, yet our genetic vulnerability to them remains a mystery. While lifestyle and environment are often blamed, the ‘glitches’ in our DNA that trigger these conditions are the products of a millennia-long struggle for survival. The ERC-funded PaleoEvoMed project aims to sequence DNA from across the ages to build a roadmap of how natural selection once favoured traits that now make us sick. A gene that helped an ancestor survive a famine or a plague might be the same one driving metabolic or autoimmune disorders today. By tracing these evolutionary trade-offs, the project aims to unlock new strategies for public health and drug development.
Objective
Common diseases, such as cancer, dementia and heart disease, are the leading causes of death globally. In the UK, it is estimated that 1 in 2 people will develop cancer in their lifetime, 1 in 3 will develop dementia, and 1 in 4 will die from cardiovascular disease. However, the risks of developing common diseases are not shared equally between individuals or populations. Genetic susceptibility to disease is a major contributor to disease prevalence, alongside diet, lifestyle and other environmental factors. Understanding the genetic component of disease risk is a critical issue in epidemiology, as it directly informs public health policy, disease prevention and the development of vaccines and novel therapeutics. Most of the existing research in this area has focused on the underlying genetics of risk, while relatively little is known about the evolutionary origins of common diseases. This is a major omission, as understanding the origins of genetic risk can improve health outcomes in the present.
In this ERC Starting Grant, I will use ancient DNA to model the evolutionary origins of genetic susceptibility to the leading causes of death and ill health worldwide, including cancer, dementia, cardiovascular, metabolic, autoimmune, respiratory and infectious diseases. I will build and apply state-of-the-art computational tools to (i) model the effects of natural selection on disease risk in the human genome; to (ii) reconstruct the evolutionary history of human and zoonotic pathogens; and to (iii) model the effects of pathogens, and other environmental factors, on the evolution of human disease susceptibility.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences health sciences public health epidemiology
- medical and health sciences health sciences infectious diseases RNA viruses coronaviruses
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy pharmaceutical drugs vaccines
- medical and health sciences basic medicine neurology dementia
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom
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