Jeffrey Rogers

Jeffrey Rogers, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine and a Core Scientist at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center. He is also a Faculty Senator and an active member of graduate programs in Genetics & Genomics and Development, Disease Models & Therapeutics at Baylor.

• Education: BA in Anthropology (Northwestern University, 1978), PhD in Anthropology (Yale University, 1989)

His research focuses on primate genetics and genomics, particularly their application as models for human diseases. Key projects include:

• Co-leading the Primate Conservation and Sequencing Initiative (PCS1), an international consortium analyzing genomic diversity across 233 primate species.
• Pioneering studies of population genomics in Papio baboons, identifying hybridization and gene flow patterns relevant to human-Neanderthal evolutionary dynamics.
• Sequencing over 2,000 rhesus macaques to map functionally significant variants for disease phenotypes.

His work bridges biomedical research and evolutionary biology, with applications in psychiatric disorders, cancer, and retinal diseases. Recent publications highlight discoveries in:

• Hybridization mechanisms in baboons (2023)
• Tolerance of genetic variation in primates compared to humans (2023)
• Predictive value of primate data for human disease mutations (2023)

He leads collaborative efforts involving 17+ countries, integrating bioinformatics, computational biology, and cross-species comparative analysis.