Centre for Geogenetics


The Centre for Geogenetics is a Danish Basic Research Centre of Excellence which officially opened in September 2010. It is located at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen and financed by the Danish National Research Foundation.

Research program

The centre originally focused on questions related to evolutionary biology and geology, but has expanded into various health and disease related topics. The program currently includes:
The labs and offices host close to 110 people of some 20 different nationalities from all over the world. CGG has five research groups, each headed by a PI. The groups are: The Willerslev Group, the Orlando/Paleomix Group, the Gilbert Group, the Anthropocene-Quaternary Group, and the Genetic Identification and Discovery Group headed by Deputy Director Anders J. Hansen. The centre is headed by Professor Eske Willerslev.

Facilities

The centre holds up to date laboratories: including two ancient DNA laboratories; post-PCR/modern DNA laboratories; the National High-throughput Sequencing Centre; sediment core facility.
Collections: The Quaternary zoology collections with Late Pleistocene and Holocene vertebrates from Denmark, Greenland and South America.

Publications

Results from the centre have been published in Nature, Science and other journals and include: sequencing of the first ancient human genome and the first aboriginal Australian genome, both revealing previously unrecognized human migrations; establishing the first Holocene sea ice record from northern Greenland, underlying the causes of the Pleistocene/Holocene megafauna extinctions; and evidence of pre-Clovis occupation in North America.
In June 2013 researchers at the centre moved the limit for the oldest full genome sequence 10-fold when they sequenced a 700.000 year old horse genome.
As of August 2017 the centre's scientists have published more than 551 publications of which 32 were published in Nature and Science.