Program of the course

A brief historical excursus of the discipline will be offer: from the pioneering immunological comparative studies, to the recent developments triggered by the complete sequencing of the human genome. We shall describe the theoretical and practical basis of the methodologies used to retrieve molecular information from anthropological samples. Special attention will be paid to ancient and modern DNA. Simple algorithms to properly elaborate different kinds of molecular data will be described and applied to case-studies.

Workshops

Handling of laboratory equipments: PCR, ABI-PRISM Sequencer, spectrophotometer. DNA extraction and purification from tissues of different kind and antiquity. PCR amplification. Agarose gel electrophoresis. Cycle-sequencing. Interpretation of ABI-Electropherograms.
Relevant software for the management of molecular data: construction of phylogenetic trees, Analysis of Molecular Variance (AMOVA), Network analysis, Evolutionary modeling and simulation