education
Register for the 2025 edition of the MOOC Human Population and Evolutionary Genetics, led by Lluis Quintana-Murci and Etienne Patin
The digital education hub is pleased to invite you to sign up for the fourth edition of the Human Population and Evolutionary Genetics MOOC, which aims to provide you basic knowledge on population genetics and its contribution to the study of migration and human adaptation to extreme conditions.
More than two decades after the sequencing of the human genome, a deluge of population genomic data has been generated, depicting human genetic diversity at an unprecedented level of resolution. This massive amount of data has improved our understanding of the demography of our species, in particular its dispersion around the globe and the interbreeding of populations.
Studies based on ancient DNA have shown that Neanderthals and Denisovans, now extinct hominins, contributed to the genome of modern non-African populations. Population genetics has also led to a better understanding of how natural selection has contributed to the diversity of the human genome on a population scale. The detection of the molecular signatures of natural selection in the human genome has made it possible to identify the genes responsible for the morphological and physiological diversity observed between current human populations.
At the end of this course, you will be able to:
• Define what is population genetics.
• Explain the factors responsible for genetic diversity.
• Describe the genetic history of our species on the 5 continents.
• Identify how humans have adapted to the great diversity of environments.
• Discuss the importance of the Neanderthal genome in our genetic heritage.
Additional information:
• Opens on October 14, 2025
• Directed by Lluis Quintana-Murci, director of the Human Evolutionary Genetics Unit at Institut Pasteur, and Etienne Patin, researcher in the unit
• Animated by Oguzhan Parasayan, postdoctoral researcher in the unit.
Sign up for this MOOC
As a Pasteurian, you can now access at any time all the content of the 24 online courses created by Institut Pasteur. You can also take advantage of the free Digital Diploma in Infectious Diseases (DNM2IP). This MOOC is one of 18 MOOC’s labeled to obtain the diploma launched in 2019 and which already has more than 2800 registrants in all continents.