New PhD student Diyar Hamidi joins the Lenz lab

20 January 2025

Photo: D. Hamidi

We welcome Diyar Hamidi as a new PhD student in the group!

Diyar moved to Germany about four years ago. During his Bachelor’s in molecular biology and genetics at Baskent University (Ankara, Turkey), he worked on genetic markers and phylogeography of Middle European water frogs and their blood parasites collaborating with the Museum für Naturkunde (Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity research, Berlin, Germany) and Comenius University (Bratislava, Slovakia). He then continued with a Master of Science degree in molecular biology and evolution at Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel (Kiel, Germany). He did his Master’s thesis in the field of population genomics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology (Plön, Germany), where he inferred recombination and selfing rates of yeast populations using sequentially Markovian coalescent models.

In January, Diyar started his PhD in the Research Unit for Evolutionary Immunogenomics, led by Prof. Dr. Tobias Lenz. Here he works on the evolutionary origin of extensive genetic variation in major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes in humans using population genetics and ancient DNA. He is highly interested in human evolution and uses bioinformatics and computational tools as methods for his research.