Scholars@Duke
Elaine Elizabeth Gomez Guevara

Elaine Elizabeth Gomez Guevara

Lecturer in Evolutionary Anthropology
Evolutionary Anthropology

Selected Publications

Getting it right: Teaching undergraduate biology to undermine racial essentialism.

Journal Article Biology methods & protocols · January 2023 How we teach human genetics matters for social equity. The biology curriculum appears to be a crucial locus of intervention for either reinforcing or undermining students' racial essentialist views. The Mendelian genetic models dominating textbooks, partic ... Full text Cite

Epigenetic ageing of the prefrontal cortex and cerebellum in humans and chimpanzees.

Journal Article Epigenetics · December 2022 Epigenetic age has emerged as an important biomarker of biological ageing. It has revealed that some tissues age faster than others, which is vital to understanding the complex phenomenon of ageing and developing effective interventions. Previous studies h ... Full text Cite

Molecular adaptation to folivory and the conservation implications for Madagascar’s lemurs

Journal Article · July 7, 2021 AbstractFolivory evolved independently at least three times over the last 40 million years among Madagascar’s lemurs. Many extant lemuriform folivores exist in sympatry in Madagascar’s remaining forests. These species avoid ... Full text Cite

Comparative analysis reveals distinctive epigenetic features of the human cerebellum.

Journal Article PLoS genetics · May 2021 Identifying the molecular underpinnings of the neural specializations that underlie human cognitive and behavioral traits has long been of considerable interest. Much research on human-specific changes in gene expression and epigenetic marks has focused on ... Full text Cite

Comparative genomic analysis of sifakas (Propithecus) reveals selection for folivory and high heterozygosity despite endangered status.

Journal Article Science advances · April 2021 Sifakas (genus Propithecus) are critically endangered, large-bodied diurnal lemurs that eat leaf-based diets and show corresponding anatomical and microbial adaptations to folivory. We report on the genome assembly of Coquerel's sifaka (P. coquer ... Full text Cite

The Pan social brain: An evolutionary history of neurochemical receptor genes and their potential impact on sociocognitive differences.

Journal Article Journal of human evolution · March 2021 Humans have unique cognitive capacities that, compared with apes, are not only simply expressed as a higher level of general intelligence, but also as a quantitative difference in sociocognitive skills. Humans' closest living relatives, bonobos (Pan panisc ... Full text Open Access Cite

Age-associated epigenetic change in chimpanzees and humans.

Journal Article Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · November 2020 Featured Publication Methylation levels have been shown to change with age at sites across the human genome. Change at some of these sites is so consistent across individuals that it can be used as an 'epigenetic clock' to predict an individual's chronological age to within a ... Full text Cite

Evolution of ASPM coding variation in apes and associations with brain structure in chimpanzees.

Journal Article Genes, brain, and behavior · September 2019 Studying genetic mechanisms underlying primate brain morphology can provide insight into the evolution of human brain structure and cognition. In humans, loss-of-function mutations in the gene coding for ASPM (Abnormal Spindle Microtubule Assembly) have be ... Full text Open Access Cite

Successful exome capture and sequencing in lemurs using human baits

Journal Article · December 18, 2018 ABSTRACT Objectives We assessed the efficacy of exome capture in lemurs using commercially available human baits. Materials and Methods We used two human kits (Nimblegen SeqCap EZ Exome Probes v2.0; IDT xGen Exome Research Panel v1.0) to capture and sequen ... Full text Cite

Epigenetic Clocks.

Journal Article Evolutionary anthropology · November 2018 Recent research has revealed clock-like patterns of epigenetic change across the life span in humans. Models describing these epigenetic changes have been dubbed "epigenetic clocks," and they can not only predict chronological age but also reveal biologica ... Full text Cite

A simple, economical protocol for DNA extraction and amplification where there is no lab

Journal Article Conservation Genetics Resources · March 1, 2018 Genetic analyses are well suited to address many research questions in the study of wild populations, yet species of interest often have distributions that are geographically distant from molecular laboratories, necessitating potentially lengthy transport ... Full text Cite

FOXP2 variation in great ape populations offers insight into the evolution of communication skills.

Journal Article Scientific reports · December 2017 The gene coding for the forkhead box protein P2 (FOXP2) is associated with human language disorders. Evolutionary changes in this gene are hypothesized to have contributed to the emergence of speech and language in the human lineage. Although FOXP2 is high ... Full text Cite

Celebrating fifty years of research at the Duke Lemur Center.

Journal Article Evolutionary anthropology · April 2017 Full text Cite

Non-human primates avoid the detrimental effects of prenatal androgen exposure in mixed-sex litters: combined demographic, behavioral, and genetic analyses.

Journal Article American journal of primatology · December 2016 Producing single versus multiple births has important life history trade-offs, including the potential benefits and risks of sharing a common in utero environment. Sex hormones can diffuse through amniotic fluid and fetal membranes, and females with male l ... Full text Cite

Potential arms race in the coevolution of primates and angiosperms: brazzein sweet proteins and gorilla taste receptors.

Journal Article American journal of physical anthropology · September 2016 ObjectivesWe explored whether variation in the sweet taste receptor protein T1R3 in primates could contribute to differences in sweet taste repertoire among species, potentially reflecting coevolution with local plants. Specifically, we examined w ... Full text Cite

Life's a peach for anthropologists in atlanta.

Journal Article Evolutionary anthropology · May 2016 Full text Cite

The gateway to anthropology in St. Louis.

Journal Article Evolutionary anthropology · May 2015 Full text Cite

Molecular phylogenetic analysis of the Papionina using concatenation and species tree methods.

Journal Article Journal of human evolution · January 2014 The Papionina is a geographically widespread subtribe of African cercopithecid monkeys whose evolutionary history is of particular interest to anthropologists. The phylogenetic relationships among arboreal mangabeys (Lophocebus), baboons (Papio), and gelad ... Full text Cite