Onur Özer
@tmrca.bsky.social
62 followers 100 following 25 posts
Human Genetics, Evolution, Immunology, HLA Timeo Hominem Unius Libri
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tmrca.bsky.social
Have you recently registered as a blood marrow donor and got your HLA genotyped?
Why don’t you try this little app I built?

HLA PCA Viewer is a Shiny app that plots your HLA genotype onto a PCA space derived from the 1000 Genomes Project.

onur-ozer.shinyapps.io/hla-pca/
github.com/onur-ozer/HL...
HLA PCA Viewer (1000 Genomes + Your Genotype)
onur-ozer.shinyapps.io
Reposted by Onur Özer
shaicarmi.bsky.social
Brilliant paper by Visscher et al.

Populations differ in traits/disease burden. Are these differences due to genetics?

Comparing single variants or polygenic scores between populations is biased due to environmental confounders correlated with the variants.

1/3

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
Direct effect of genetic ancestry on complex traits in a Mexican population
Human populations differ in disease prevalences and in average values of phenotypes, but the extent to which differences are caused by genetic or environmental factors is unknown for most complex trai...
www.medrxiv.org
tmrca.bsky.social
I remember back when I was learning Python, a computer engineer mentioned objects and I asked "What is an object?" The answer was: "What do you mean? Everything is an object in Python!" and he continued without expanding.

I wish more explanations like this were available back then...
tommytang.bsky.social
1/
What the heck is an "object" (like a Seurat object) in programming?
If you're in bioinformatics, this term shows up a lot.
Let’s break it down with examples that actually make sense 🧵
tmrca.bsky.social
Have you recently registered as a blood marrow donor and got your HLA genotyped?
Why don’t you try this little app I built?

HLA PCA Viewer is a Shiny app that plots your HLA genotype onto a PCA space derived from the 1000 Genomes Project.

onur-ozer.shinyapps.io/hla-pca/
github.com/onur-ozer/HL...
HLA PCA Viewer (1000 Genomes + Your Genotype)
onur-ozer.shinyapps.io
tmrca.bsky.social
I am honored and humbled to receive the Jon van Rood Award for Best Abstract at EFI 2025! My first EFI was amazing and I am looking forward to many more ahead! #EFI2025 #immunogenetics
tmrca.bsky.social
#EFI2025 is about to kick off in beautiful Prague! 🇨🇿

I’ll be presenting in the Best Abstracts session on Saturday, sharing our work on ancient HLA diversity in Europe. Super excited for a week of science, new connections, and fresh ideas!

#HLA #AncientDNA #Immunogenetics #MHC
tmrca.bsky.social
Anyway, I will cut it short. The people of Turkey are suffering under a crushing economic decline, political oppression, censorship, a degrading quality of education and a collapsed electoral system. We are digging under the rubble with the hope of seeing the light.
tmrca.bsky.social
Resistance against the current regime is nothing new. I began my bachelor's in 2010, and my entire university life was marked by pepper spray, batons, water cannons, and plastic bullets. Yet, at the time, the regime was being praised in Europe for its supposed "democratic" values.
tmrca.bsky.social
Sadly, all of this was not only supported by the usual suspects of the far-right, but also by liberals, greens, social democrats, etc. Anyone can be accommodated, even praised, as long as they are useful. This has been the case for the regime in Turkey for a long time.
tmrca.bsky.social
Syria was handed over to an ISIS commander with a million-dollar reward on his head just a few months ago. Taliban leaders are quietly being removed from terrorist lists. The rabid far-right government of Israel gets unconditional support for its massacre of Palestinians.
tmrca.bsky.social
Authoritarianism is on the rise across the globe, paving the way for extremist governments. In our interconnected world, ignoring the suffering of ordinary people is no longer an option. Unfortunately, the Western world has recently failed many tests in this regard.
tmrca.bsky.social
Anybody who dares to speak up against the party-state feels "the Iron Heel". Hundreds of citizens -students, journalists, politicians- are under arrest, websites are blocked, TV channels are getting broadcast bans. All to ensure the continuation of a corrupt regime.
tmrca.bsky.social
This is not an isolated case, of course. If you have been following the news, you are likely aware of the ongoing political crackdown in Turkey. Here is a summary of the situation (from 5 days ago). Since then, the crackdown only escalated.

kulturkampftr.substack.com/p/turkey-res...
Turkey Resists
By arresting İmamoğlu, Erdoğan banks on public apathy. He's getting the opposite.
kulturkampftr.substack.com
tmrca.bsky.social
I have always been proud of my university ODTÜ in Turkey, not only for its academic success but also for the political stance of students. Right now, this is the treatment faced by students who stand up for democracy.

(photo credit unknown for now)
Polica in Turkey kicking a student who carries a Turkish flag
tmrca.bsky.social
Leadership is busy beating their own best & brightest at universities right now. Plus, the stance that Turkey's ruling regime has adopted regarding Palestine is only performative, aimed at consolidating their voter base. They would shout a few words for that lady if they see benefit, nothing more.
tmrca.bsky.social
I will present some results of this study together with our other projects on ancient #HLA diversity in Europe at the 38th European Immunogenetics & Histocompatibility Conference #EFI2025

#MHC #immunogenomics #ancientDNA
tmrca.bsky.social
More importantly, we don't know if that haplotype was already common in WHG or not. Having some frequency data would allow us to estimate expected frequencies after the admixture and test whether the observed frequency can be explained solely by admixture or not.
tmrca.bsky.social
What could be the reason for this excess WHG ancestry across the MHC region? Our pathogen screening did not provide any obvious target. There are some associations between DRB1*08:01-DQB1*04:02 alleles and some pathogens, notably the hepatitis-B virus. But was it enough to drive such a signal?
tmrca.bsky.social
Combining targeted HLA genotyping with the genomewide data, we found that LF individuals carrying DRB1*08:01-DQB1*04:02 haplotype had an excess of WHG ancestry across the MHC region, suggesting that this haplotype introgressed from the hunter-gatherers.
tmrca.bsky.social
We also observed an increased diversity from EF to LF. We hypothesized that this could result from the admixture between EF and WHG. Using a local ancestry inference method called RFMix and we found that across the MHC region, the WHG ancestry was much higher than the genomewide average.
tmrca.bsky.social
We next moved to the part that I personally feel closer to: the HLA analysis. Using capture-based sequencing and a stringent genotyping approach, we managed to obtain HLA genotypes of 135 individuals (EF = 45, LF = 90). Overall, the Neolithic HLA diversity was lower than modern populations.
tmrca.bsky.social
We observed that the WHG ancestry in LF exceeded what we expected from other contemporaneous farmers around Europe. This highlights the regional variation in cultural practices and interactions between communities. Furthermore, the WHG admixture appears to be male-biased.
tmrca.bsky.social
We analyzed the genetic data of 125 individuals, 49 early farmers (EF) and 76 late farmers (LF). Remains of these individuals were recovered from seven sites within modern central and southern Germany. Right away, we observe an increase in WHG ancestry in the LF group, compared to EF.
tmrca.bsky.social
For example, we can speculate that the alleles of the locally adapted WHG might have helped migrant farmers thrive in the novel environment or provide protection against local pathogens. Our aim was to investigate these changes between the early and late Neolithic farmers.