Carles Lalueza Fox (Barcelona, 1965) is a Spanish biologist specialized in the study of ancient DNA.[1] A doctor in Biology for the University of Barcelona, he worked in Cambridge and Oxford as well as in the private genetics company CODE Genetics of Iceland. Since 2008, he has served as a research Scientist in the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC – Pompeu Fabra University).[2]
He is a specialist in DNA recovery techniques from the remains of the past, in phylogenetic reconstruction of extinct species, in the rebuilding of past migrations in human populations and in the evolutionary genetics of Neanderthals.[3][4] In 2010, the magazine Science published a study directed by Svante Pääbo, which demonstrated the presence of Neanderthal DNA in the Homo sapiens for the first time. Lalueza was one the fifty investigators that collaborated with this project.[5]
Lalueza-Fox also directed the first sequencing of a European mesolithic genome at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona (2014). The team of scientists led by him discovered that African versions of pigmentation genes determined his skin color, but that he had blue eyes now associated with northern Europeans.[6][7]
Bibliography
1999: Mensajes del pasado
2002: Razas, racismo y diversidad
2002: Dioses y monstruos
2003: El bestiario extinguido
2003: El color bajo la piel
2005: Genes de Neandertal
2006: Cuando éramos caníbales
2013: Palabras en el tiempo
2013: Genes, reyes e impostores
2017: Des-Extinctiones. Una inmersión rápida
2022: Inequality: A Genetic History
Awards and honours
Winner of the VII European Prize for Scientific Dissemination, promoted by the University of Valencia, for the book "Razas, racismo y diversidad". Year 2001.
Winner of the VII prize for Scientific Literature, promoted by the Fundació Catalana per a la recerca, for the book "El color bajo la piel". Year 2002.