University of Ferrara
Welcome to the homepage for the Ghirotto Lab at the University of Ferrara. Our research focuses on Evolutionary Genomics and Paleogenomics, with a particular interest on human evolution. We encourage an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the past, involving fields like anthropology, linguistic, medicine, ecology. Our projects also include the development and testing of inferential procedures to estimate demographic and evolutionary parameters using present-day and ancient genomes.
We have a deep interest in Paleogenomics, in particular related to ancient human genomics of populations of the Mediterranean Basin and Italian Peninsula. We focus on inference of colonization dynamics and evolutionary and demographic processes affecting genome variation of human populations across time and space.
Our interest in ancient metagenomics focuses on the analysis of microbiome of dental calculus. We are particularly interested on how the Neolithic transition affected the taxonomic and genetic composition of oral microbiome in ancient human populations.
We perform model-based inferential analyses to shed light on past demographic and evolutionary processes of natural populations. This includes reconstructing the colonization dynamics of invasive species.
We are interested in testing the effectiveness of existing frameworks for population genomics analysis to different experimental conditions, and adapting these frameworks to new data or new needs of the discipline. We pay particular attention in methods/framework to handling low-coverage data.
I am an associate professor in Genetics at the University of Ferrara and external scientific member of the center "World, Bones, Genes, Tools" at the University of Tübingen (Germany). My research focuses in the reconstruction of evolutionary processes that shaped current and past patterns of genomic variation using both modern and ancient DNA data. I am particularly interested in exploring and interpreting human genetic variation together with evidence from other fields as anthropology, archaeology, linguistics. I am primarily involved in the development and the analysis of statistical methods, mainly based on computer simulations, to infer past population dynamics and estimate demographic and evolutionary parameters.
I studied Human Biology at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon and received my PhD in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology from the University of Ferrara in 2020. My research interests focus on how genomic data are influenced by the demographic history of populations and the methods used to improve our understanding of the human evolutionary history. My current research activity is focused on the study of the Neolithic transition in Europe through the analysis of genomic and metagenomic data extracted from ancient human finds.
I studied prehistoric archaeology in Ferrara and received my PhD in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology from the University of Ferrara in 2021. My research focuses mainly on the study of the genetic variability of Homo sapiens in its geographical and temporal dimensions, testing demographic hypotheses that combine genomic and archaeological data. I am also interested in the development of new frameworks that exploit both modern and ancient genomes, in order to better understand migration, kinship, and processes of cultural change during the evolution of our species.
I received my master degree in Biomolecular and Evolutionary Sciences from the Univeristy of Ferrara in 2019. My research focuses mainly on demographic modeling and reconstruction of evolutionary dynamics. I am studying past human populations in Italy analyzing ancient whole-genome sequences using different approaches. I am also collaborating on projects involving different fields, such as employing bacterial markers for tracing human migrations or the reconstruction of demographic dynamics in invasive species.
Graduated in 2022 in Biomolecular and Cellular Sciences at the University of Ferrara, I’m now pursuing my PhD in Life Sciences and Biotechnology. My research focuses on exploring the genomics of the ancient population of Pompeii, analyzing whole-genome sequences of the victims of the 79 CE eruption using different approaches. I am also involved in projects aimed at reconstructing the evolutionary history of loci of pharmacogenetic interest from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives, using ancient and modern data.
I graduated in Evolutionary Biology at the University of Padua in 2022. My main interests are European medieval history and demography and skeletal anthropology. I am currently working on reconstructing the evolutionary dynamics of past human populations in Italy through the analysis of ancient genomes.
I am a student of the master’s degree in Molecular biology, Genomics and Biodiversity at the University of Ferrara. My master’s thesis concerns the reconstruction of the reference genome of ancient bacteria obtained from metagenomics analysis on dental calculus of ancient humans, to investigate the transition from hunter-gathering to farming in southern Italy.
I am a master’s student in Industrial Biotechnology for Biopharmaceuticals at the University of Ferrara. My master’s thesis focuses on the study of pathogens through the analysis of genomic and metagenomic data from individuals whose remains were recovered from two medieval cemeteries.
I am a master student in Molecular biology, Genomics and Biodiversity at the University of Ferrara. My master's thesis explores pigmentation in archaic humans through the analysis of ancient DNA, investigating how this phenotypic trait evolved over time as Homo sapiens dispersed from Africa.
Open PhD position
Our latest paper is now online!
Ghirotto Lab at the World Neolithic Congress