This is the blog for GW students taking Human Evolutionary Genetics. This site is for posting interesting tidbits on: the patterns and processes of human genetic variation;human origins and migration; molecular adaptations to environment, lifestyle and disease; ancient and forensic DNA analyses; and genealogical reconstructions.

GWHEG figure

GWHEG figure

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Forensic identification of age using methyl tags



A new paper in the journal Epigenetics suggests methyl tags for specific genes (e.g. ELOVL2 ) are highly correlated with age.  This could provide a diagnostic tool - more precise/feasible than telomeres - for estimating the age of a suspect in forensic phenotyping. Perhaps similar assays could be developed for estimating age in wild primates! 

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