Skip to 18:40 to hear the interview with George Busby.

Map of admixture events – Arrows show inferred gene-flow between Bantu speaking groups Cameroon (red), Tanzania (orange), Malawi (brown), and South Africa (green).

In the June 2016 eLife podcast, George Busby discusses his research using genetic data to reconstruct the movement of human populations into and within Africa over the past 4,000 years.

A DNA analysis of more than 4,000 individuals from 48 different African populations and 12 non-African populations, was performed to characterise genetic diversity and gene flow – the transfer of genes between different populations – uncovering admixture events in all 48 African populations.

These findings provide important insights into how genes have spread around Africa, and also a foundation for studying how genetic diversity contributes to human health and disease on the continent.

eLife podcast, Episode 30, June 2016 is reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence.