🏛️ Temple University • Fall 2026

BIOL 3111 / 5111: Genomics in Medicine & Disease

A quantitative, mechanistic journey across evolutionary biology, molecular diagnostics, evidence-based pharmacology, and AI-driven precision therapeutics.

👨‍🏫 Instructor: Prof. Sergei Pond 📍 Department: Biology / Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine 📅 Class Meetings: Tuesdays & Thursdays 17:30–18:50

Course Slide Decks & Materials

📜 Full Syllabus & Grading →
Lecture 01 • Week 1

Genomics in Medicine & The AI Frontier

🟢 Completed

Deconstructs foundational myths in modern medicine: why "normal" reference intervals are statistical fictions, how 1750 London infant mortality distorted life expectancy, the evolutionary scar of the Black Death, the economic trap of blockbuster clinical trial averages, and how structure-based genomics cured CML.

Lecture 02 • Week 2

The Architecture of the Human Genome: Physical Molecules, Ploidy & The Missing 8%

📘 Active Lecture

From digital 1D code to 3D nuclear chromatin, chromosome mechanical segregation, mitochondrial heteroplasmy bottlenecks, the genetics of cis/trans phasing, the historical evolution of the gene concept, and how the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) consortium finally finished the 20-year missing 8%.

📄 Required Reading: Nurk et al. (Science, 2022) View on Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.abj6987) →
"The complete sequence of a human genome" • Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium
  • Focus 1: Abstract & Introduction — Why was ~8% of the human genome missing for 20 years?
  • Focus 2: Figure 1 & Figure 2 — GRCh38 gaps vs. T2T closed chromosomes; what was hidden inside the heterochromatic repeats?
  • Focus 3: Section "Clinical Implications" — How unresolved repeats caused false-positive clinical variant calls.
Lecture 03 • Week 3

Thousands of Tiny Nudges: GWAS, Complex Traits, and Polygenic Risk Scores

🚀 Reading Assigned

From monogenic Mendelian certainties to Fisher's infinitesimal model. Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS), Linkage Disequilibrium, Manhattan plots, within-family sibling controls, and the hype audit of Polygenic Indices (PGIs).

📄 Required Reading: Schwaba et al. (Nature, 2026) View on Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10992-9) →
"Robust inference and correlates from genetic associations with personality" • Meta-analysis of 46 cohorts (N > 1.14 Million)
  • Focus 1: Table 1 & Figure 1 — 1,260 lead SNPs; 82% trait-specific architecture vs. overlapping prefrontal cortex gene sets.
  • Focus 2: Figure 4 & Section "Within-Family Analyses" — Sibling controls proving minimal familial confounding compared to educational attainment.
  • Focus 3: Figure 2 & The Hype Audit — Why PGIs explain only 1%–3% of variance and cannot predict individual future behavior.