Lluis Quintana-Murci

Lluis Quintana-Murci holds the Chair in Human Genomics and Evolution at the Collège de France since 2019, focusing on human genome diversity from fundamental and medical perspectives. His research spans three interconnected domains: (i) demographic history of human populations with emphasis on Central Africa and the Pacific, (ii) mechanisms of human adaptation to environmental pressures—particularly infectious diseases, and (iii) genetic and epigenetic contributions to immune response variation.

His pioneering work established evolutionary biology and population genetics approaches for studying host-pathogen interactions, demonstrating how natural selection shaped innate immunity genes and classified them by biological importance. Quintana-Murci revealed the adaptive significance of interbreeding between human populations and with extinct hominins like Neanderthals, showing how such introgression provided beneficial genetic variants—particularly for viral defense in early European Homo sapiens.

These fundamental discoveries directly inform precision medicine by identifying genetic and environmental factors underlying immune response differences. His collaborative network includes geneticists, evolutionary biologists, anthropologists, statisticians, microbiologists, immunologists, and epidemiologists.

• Recent Highlights: Digital publication of inaugural lecture (July 2024), Chair of Excellence in Biology-Health award (April 2024), SARS-CoV-2 immune response studies (August 2023)

Quintana-Murci actively teaches courses including Human Evolution and Population Genetics, Genetic Adaptation to Environments, and Paleogenomics. His 2022 co-organized symposium Genetic Admixture: Inference and Evolutionary Consequences featured 15 international speakers exploring admixture across humans, primates, canids, and domesticated species.