The group aims at understanding the origin and evolution of (mainly) human genetic diversity and their consequences and applications, both normal and pathological (using autosomal, X and Y linked, as well as mtDNA markers).

This requires the development of descriptive and analytical formal tools and techniques adequate to specific genomic segments, in order to achieve the genetic characterisation of normal populations, their origins, phylogeny and evolution, and disease susceptibility profiles.

The applications in which we concentrate our efforts are molecular diagnostics and forensics, conservation and management of domesticates and laboratory animals as well as food quality assessment.