Come to my talk today at 2:30 PM in the Expression/Transcriptomics session #Evol2026 I’ll talk about how gene duplication and regulatory architecture drive the evolution of new traits in salivary glands, and hopefully convince you that this is a cool system for studying the evol of gene expression!

We are excited to announce that the 2026 Great Lakes Annual Meeting of Evolutionary Genomics (GLAM-EvoGen) will take place on Saturday, August 15, 2026 at the University at Buffalo. More information is available on our website: gokcumenlab.org/glam2026/ @gokcumenlab.bsky.social

T2T assemblies for nearly all major Y chromosome haplogroups courtesy of a collab between @humanpangenome.bsky.social and HGSVC! What was once the hardest human chromosome to finish can now be routinely assembled thanks to ONT + Verkko www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our paper on recurrent independent duplications in the primate amylase locus is now out in Cell Reports! Huge thanks to @petarpajic, @spit-lab.bsky.social and @gokcumenlab.bsky.social for their support. More about the work in the thread below from when we first shared the preprint last August.

1/ New paper out in Nature Communications! We studied the salivary amylase gene, AMY1, in Indigenous Andean populations and found evidence that high AMY1 copy number rapidly increased in frequency, likely through recent positive selection. doi.org/10.1038/s414...

The special issue Functional and Adaptive Effects of Genomic Structural Variation is now out in Heredity. Many thanks to all contributors for their submissions, to the editorial team at @heredityjournal.bsky.social and to @ellenleffler.bsky.social, @mydennis.bsky.social & @gokcumenlab.bsky.social!

Nice surprise this morning! A Dispatch on our paper on paralog interference now out in Current Biology! By Krishna Swamy and Jun-Yi Leu. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Gene Expansion and Regulatory Rewiring Shape Sex-Biased Evolution of the Mouse Submandibular Gland Secretome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.18.712472v1

Gene Expansion and Regulatory Rewiring Shape Sex-Biased Evolution of the Mouse Submandibular Gland Secretome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.18.712472v1

Pajic & @gokcumenlab.bsky.social synthesize the evolution of VNTRs in mammals, including mutational mechanisms and selective forces driving their evolution, and propose a theoretical framework for their persistence through evolutionary tradeoffs. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf250 #genome #evolution

New review from @gokcumenlab.bsky.social led by Petar Pajic on VNTRs. If you’re interested in VNTRs, this is a very nice synthesis. academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...

academic.oup.com/gbe/article/... 🦷🦷 #TEETH 🥛🥛 #MILK 💧💧 #SALIVA❗️

Our preprint, "Read mismapping from segmental duplications drives spurious trans associations," is out! We argue that both RNA and DNA read mismapping can lead to false signals in QTLs, Hi-C, GWAS, and gene co-expression. And there is a way to identify them! Link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What have 🦷🦷 #TEETH 🦷🦷, 🥛 #MILK 🥛, and💧💧 #SALIVA 💧💧to do with each other? Ask PetarPajic, Luane Landau, and Omer Gokcumen @gokcumenlab.bsky.social ❗️ academic.oup.com/gbe/article-...

Pajic, @gokcumenlab.bsky.social @spit-lab.bsky.social et al. explored the evolution of saliva-related SCPP genes, observing extensive diversification of SCPP genes within mammals, driven by gene duplications and losses. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf165 #genome #evolution #primates

New paper with @spit-lab.bsky.social @genomebiolevol.bsky.social - Bottom-line: genes that encode secreted saliva genes evolve pretty fast and gene duplications/deletions are mostly the culprit. academic.oup.com/gbe/advance-...

✨ 1 of the proudest achievements of the lab. the sex- and diet-dependent effects of an ancient deletion (>Neanderthal–human divergence) in the 3rd conserved exon of GHR (GHRd3). growth, resistance to hunger, and metabolism. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #BioRenderForGrants #ScienceAdvances

Such a great talk this morning on primate amylase evolution by @evobioclio.bsky.social #ESEB2025

Postdoctoral Research Associate sought for lipid biology and evolutionary genomics project. Ideal candidates in cell biology or bioinformatics; must be eager to learn interdisciplinary skills. Contact Dr. Ekin Atilla-Gokcumen: [email protected]. More info: https://atillalab.org/ #postdoc

Our latest preprint explores the evolution of the primate amylase locus, uncovering structural innovations, regulatory shifts and molecular convergence. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Very nice comparative study led @evobioclio.bsky.social from @gokcumenlab.bsky.social, using the the primate amylase locus to reveal how structural and regulatory modularity in complex genomic regions drives evolutionary innovation and molecular convergence 🧪🧬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

❗️❗️❗️👄👄 #MOUTH 👄👄 🦷🦷 #TEETH 🦷🦷 💧💧 #SALIVA 💧💧🦠🦠 #MICROBIOME🦠🦠 🍭🍭 #glycotime 🍭🍭 ❗️❗️❗️ ❗️We are hiring❗️Check out this full-time tenure track academic faculty position in the #UBSDM's Department of Oral Biology. ms.spr.ly/6045sKrT9

Check out our latest work co-led by @dcsoto.bsky.social and @jmuribescr.bsky.social identifying hundreds of human duplicated gene families using the new T2T-CHM13 assembly, with a focus on those potentially contributing to brain evolution 🧪: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lTQtL7PXu...

Outreach volunteers sought! @imprintedgene.bsky.social and I will host “Breaking Bread: Exploring the Evolution of Amylase in humans” at Festa Major de Gràcia, Barcelona (16 Aug, 19:00). We need 1-2 volunteers (ES/EN) for visitor guidance and on-site translation. Please DM or email me if interested.

Great write-up by Technology Networks on our recent work on switch-like gene expression in humans. It is short, clear, and just a 4-min read. If transcriptomic variation interests you, please give it a look! Write-up: www.technologynetworks.com/genomics/new... Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

University press release for our recent study, "Switch-like gene expression modulates disease risk," published in Nature Communications. Link to paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy to share our new study from my PhD on the spread of farming across Anatolia and into the Aegean and then into Europe. @compevohumang.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 👇🏽

Excited to share that I’ve been selected as a Spring 2025 recipient of the DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics! Very grateful to the Genetics Society of America @genetics-gsa.bsky.social for their support.

New manuscript from the Gokcumen Lab! @gokcumenlab.bsky.social

Made it to Athens, GA for #Evol2025! Very excited to be attending my first in-person Evolution meeting. I'll be giving a talk on the evolution of the primate amylase locus and presenting a poster on our recent paper about the human amylase locus this Sunday. DM me if you want to catch up!