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Janet Kelso
Janet Kelso
	Janet Kelso speaking at Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology conference in 2015
Born	March 24, 1975 (age 49)
Alma mater	University of Natal; University of Cape Town; University of the Western Cape;
Awards	L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science (2004); Newcomb Cleveland Prize (2010); ISCB Fellow (2016);
	Scientific career
Fields	Bioinformatics; Computational biology;
Institutions	Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Thesis	The development and application of informatics-based systems for the analysis of the human transcriptome (2003)
Doctoral advisors	Winston Hide
Website	www.eva.mpg.de/genetics/bioinformatics/group-staff.html

Janet Kelso (born 1975) is a South African computational biologist and Group leader of the Minerva Research Group for Bioinformatics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] She is best known for her work comparing DNA from previous humans (i.e. Neanderthals) with those of the present (Homo Sapiens).

A previous challenge for computational biologists was the lack of proper DNA preservation and technology to analyze the nuclear genomes of the ancient humans. This obstacle strengthened Kelso's interest in bioinformatics and initially approached the issue using the reference based method. From there, her and her research team have made advances in research towards ancient DNA.^[6]

Education

Kelso gained her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Natal in 1995 followed by Honours and Master of Science degrees in medical biochemistry and chemical pathology from the University of Cape Town in 1997 and 2000, respectively.^[2] She received her PhD in bioinformatics in 2003, from the University of the Western Cape, supervised by Winston Hide.^[7]^[8]^[9]

Research and career

Kelso has carried out research in comparative primate genomics and has contributed to the Neanderthal, bonobo and orangutan genome projects.^[8]^[10]^[11] Since 2004, she has been Group leader of the Minerva Research Group for Bioinformatics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.^[2] At the Institute, Kelso conducted her research in collaboration with the UK Biobank (UKB). UKB holds genetic and medical information at population-scale; through the UKB, Kelso and her colleagues discovered a correlation between Neantherthal variants and certain behaviors and traits. For instance, they could now calculate the probability of being an evening or morning person.^[12]

Since 2013, she has been co-Executive Editor of the scientific journal Bioinformatics.^[13]

Awards and honors

Kelso won a L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science Fellowship in 2004.^[14]^[15] With her co-authors, she was awarded the Newcomb Cleveland Prize for the most outstanding paper in Science in 2010: this paper published the draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome.^[2]^[10] Kelso served as Vice President of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) from 2011-2013 and in 2016 was elected to serve another 3-year term as vice president, starting in January 2017.^[16] She was elected an ISCB Fellow by the International Society for Computational Biology in 2016.^[1]^[17]

References

^ ^a ^b Anon (2017). "ISCB Fellows". iscb.org. International Society for Computational Biology. Archived from the original on 20 March 2017.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Existing members of ELIXIR SAB.pdf" (PDF). Retrieved 13 September 2016.
^ Leipzig, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "Dept. of Genetics | Bioinformatics | Group Staff". www.eva.mpg.de. Retrieved 13 September 2016.
^ Janet Kelso at DBLP Bibliography Server
^ Janet Kelso publications indexed by Google Scholar
^ KAUST Live: Janet Kelso of Max-Planck and Sudhir Kumar of Temple University, 4 December 2017, retrieved 27 November 2021
^ Kelso, Janet (2003). The development and application of informatics-based systems for the analysis of the human transcriptome. uwc.ac.za (PhD thesis). University of the Western Cape. hdl:11394/2003. OCLC 56536421.
^ ^a ^b "ISCB Newsletter 17-2". www.iscb.org. Retrieved 13 September 2016.
^ Fogg, Christiana N.; Kovats, Diane E. (24 June 2015). "Computational Biology: Moving into the Future One Click at a Time". PLOS Computational Biology. 11 (6): e1004323. Bibcode:2015PLSCB..11E4323F. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004323. PMC 4481313. PMID 26107876.
^ ^a ^b Green, R. E.; Krause, J.; Briggs, A. W.; Maricic, T.; Stenzel, U.; Kircher, M.; Patterson, N.; Li, H.; Zhai, W.; Fritz, M. H. Y.; Hansen, N. F.; Durand, E. Y.; Malaspinas, A. S.; Jensen, J. D.; Marques-Bonet, T.; Alkan, C.; Prufer, K.; Meyer, M.; Burbano, H. A.; Good, J. M.; Schultz, R.; Aximu-Petri, A.; Butthof, A.; Hober, B.; Hoffner, B.; Siegemund, M.; Weihmann, A.; Nusbaum, C.; Lander, E. S.; Russ, C.; Novod, N.; Affourtit, J.; Egholm, M.; Verna, C.; Rudan, P.; Brajkovic, D.; Kucan, Z.; Gusic, I.; Doronichev, V. B.; Golovanova, L. V.; Lalueza-Fox, C.; de la Rasilla, M.; Fortea, J.; Rosas, A.; Schmitz, R. W.; Johnson, P. L. F.; Eichler, E. E.; Falush, D.; Birney, E.; Mullikin, J. C.; Slatkin, M.; Nielsen, R.; Kelso, J.; Lachmann, M.; Reich, D.; Paabo, S. (6 May 2010). "A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome". Science. 328 (5979): 710–722. Bibcode:2010Sci...328..710G. doi:10.1126/science.1188021. PMC 5100745. PMID 20448178.
^ Prüfer, Kay; Munch, Kasper; Hellmann, Ines; Akagi, Keiko; Miller, Jason R.; Walenz, Brian; Koren, Sergey; Sutton, Granger; Kodira, Chinnappa; Winer, Roger; Knight, James R.; Mullikin, James C.; Meader, Stephen J.; Ponting, Chris P.; Lunter, Gerton; Higashino, Saneyuki; Hobolth, Asger; Dutheil, Julien; Karakoç, Emre; Alkan, Can; Sajjadian, Saba; Catacchio, Claudia Rita; Ventura, Mario; Marques-Bonet, Tomas; Eichler, Evan E.; André, Claudine; Atencia, Rebeca; Mugisha, Lawrence; Junhold, Jörg; Patterson, Nick; Siebauer, Michael; Good, Jeffrey M.; Fischer, Anne; Ptak, Susan E.; Lachmann, Michael; Symer, David E.; Mailund, Thomas; Schierup, Mikkel H.; Andrés, Aida M.; Kelso, Janet; Pääbo, Svante (13 June 2012). "The bonobo genome compared with the chimpanzee and human genomes". Nature. 486 (7404): 527–31. Bibcode:2012Natur.486..527P. doi:10.1038/nature11128. PMC 3498939. PMID 22722832.
^ "Genetic data on half a million Brits reveal ongoing evolution and Neanderthal legacy". www.science.org. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
^ "ISCB Newsletter 16-1". www.iscb.org. Retrieved 13 September 2016.
^ "Cape Town Student Wins National Award for Women in Science". www.panapress.com. Retrieved 13 September 2016.
^ "Winston Hide | Harvard School of Public Health - Academia.edu". hsph-harvard.academia.edu. Retrieved 13 September 2016.
^ "September 12, 2016 - ISCB Announces Results of the 2016 Officer and Student Council Leadership Elections!". www.iscb.org. Retrieved 13 September 2016.
^ "Feb 22, 2016: ISCB Congratulates & Introduces the 2016 Class of Fellows!". www.iscb.org. Retrieved 13 September 2016.