Affiliation

Senior Researcher: IPATIMUP (Instittuto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto)

 

Address

c/o Dr Roberto Frias
s/n 4200-465, Porto,
Portugal

 

Contact

Tel: 351 225 570 700
E-mail: lpereira@ipatimup.pt

 

Biosketch

The analyses of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome diversities are Dr Pereira’s main research areas. Focusing in Portugal and former Portuguese colonies in Africa, significant results were contributed to the: emerging patterns of European and worldwide female and male genetic diversities; quantifying the North African input in Iberia; ascertaining the origin in Africa of the sub-Saharan lineages present now in the New World and in Portugal; and detecting the reorganisation of sub-Saharan diversity inside Africa as a result of the Bantu expansion. She also conducts studies of mitochondrial DNA in clinical genetics (male infertility and myopathies), and in human longevity.

 

Key research/capacity building interests

 

Research Interests

• Human population genetics
• Mitochondrial DNA neutral and pathological diversities
• Mitochondrial DNA role in male fertility and human longevity

Capacity Building Interests

• Collaborate in co-supervision of post-graduate students
• Training for African students in molecular biology techniques and data analyses

Key methodological skills

• Molecular biology techniques training
• Application and development of statistic Methodologies

Current/planned research

• Longevity in humans of African origins – a genetic approach (submitted for funding).
• Refining the geographical origin and dispersal routes of early modern humans and early farmers of the Greater Mediterranean with high-resolution genetic techniques (submitted for funding).
• Complete mitochondrial genomes from asthenozoospermic males: searching for association between mtDNA and sperm motility (ongoing).
• Y-chromosome phylogeography in Southeast Asia and the Pacific (ongoing).
• Genetic exchanges between Marocco and Portugal

Current engagement in capacity building

Supervision of dissertations on different levels in Legal Medicine, Biology and Clinical Genetics