Nick Patterson (scientist)

{{Short description|American computational geneticist}}

{{other people|Nick Patterson}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{Infobox scientist

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| birth_name = Nicholas James Patterson

| birth_date = {{birth date |1947|06|09}}

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| fields = Genetics

| workplaces = Broad Institute

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| education = University of Cambridge

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| thesis_title = On Conway's Group .O and Some Other Groups

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| thesis_year = 1973

| doctoral_advisor = John G. Thompson

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| known_for = Neanderthal genome project

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Nicholas James Patterson (born 9 June 1947)

{{Cite web

| url = https://www.chessgames.com/player/nicholas_j_patterson.html

| title = Nicholas J Patterson

| date =

| work = chessgames.com

}}

is a mathematician working as a staff scientist at the Broad Institute with notable contributions to the area of computational genomics.

{{Cite news

| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/science/12prof.html

| title = Nick Patterson: A Cold War Cryptologist Takes a Crack at Deciphering DNA's Deep Secrets

| newspaper = The New York Times

| date = 2006-12-12

| last1 = Chen | first1 = Ingfei

}}

{{Cite web

| url = https://www.broadinstitute.org/bios/nick-patterson

| title = Nick Patterson

| website = Broad Institute

| date = April 2012

}}

His work has appeared in scientific journals such as Nature, Science and Nature Genetics.

{{Cite web

| url = https://www.scholar.google.com/citations?user=-OVm5iMAAAAJ&hl=en

| title = Nick Patterson

| website = scholar.google.com

| date =

}}

{{Cite web

| url = https://www.science.org/content/author/nick-patterson

| title = Nick Patterson

| website = ScienceMag.org

| access-date = 6 July 2020

}}

His research has brought a better understanding of early human migrations.

{{cite journal

| doi = 10.1016/j.cell.2017.08.049 | pmid=28938123 | pmc=5679310 | volume=171 | issue=1

| title = Reconstructing Prehistoric African Population Structure | year=2017 | journal=Cell | pages=59–71.e21

| last1 = Skoglund | first1 = Pontus

| last2 = Thompson | first2 = Jessica C.

| last3 = Prendergast | first3 = Mary E.

| last4 = Mittnik | first4 = Alissa

| last5 = Sirak | first5 = Kendra

| last6 = Hajdinjak | first6 = Mateja

| last7 = Salie | first7 = Tasneem

| last8 = Rohland | first8 = Nadin

| last9 = Mallick | first9 = Swapan

| last10 = Peltzer | first10 = Alexander

| last11 = Heinze | first11 = Anja

| last12 = Olalde | first12 = Iñigo

| last13 = Ferry | first13 = Matthew

| last14 = Harney | first14 = Eadaoin

| last15 = Michel | first15 = Megan

| last16 = Stewardson | first16 = Kristin

| last17 = Cerezo-Román | first17 = Jessica I.

| last18 = Chiumia | first18 = Chrissy

| last19 = Crowther | first19 = Alison

| last20 = Gomani-Chindebvu | first20 = Elizabeth

| last21 = Gidna | first21 = Agness O.

| last22 = Grillo | first22 = Katherine M.

| last23 = Helenius | first23 = I. Taneli

| last24 = Hellenthal | first24 = Garrett

| last25 = Helm | first25 = Richard

| last26 = Horton | first26 = Mark

| last27 = López | first27 = Saioa

| last28 = Mabulla | first28 = Audax Z.P.

| last29 = Parkington | first29 = John

| last30 = Shipton | first30 = Ceri

| last31 = Thomas | first31 = Mark G.

| last32 = Tibesasa | first32 = Ruth

| last33 = Welling | first33 = Menno

| last34 = Hayes | first34 = Vanessa M.

| last35 = Kennett | first35 = Douglas J.

| last36 = Ramesar | first36 = Raj

| last37 = Meyer | first37 = Matthias

| last38 = Pääbo | first38 = Svante

| last39 = Patterson | first39 = Nick

| last40 = Morris | first40 = Alan G.

| last41 = Boivin | first41 = Nicole

| last42 = Pinhasi | first42 = Ron

| last43 = Krause | first43 = Johannes

| last44 = Reich | first44 = David

| url = http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10022853/ }}

{{cite journal

| last = Sankararaman | first = S. | author2 = Patterson, N. | author3 = Li, H.

| author4 = Pääbo, S. | author5 = Reich, D | author6 = Akey, J.M.

| title = The Date of Interbreeding between Neandertals and Modern Humans

| journal=PLOS Genetics | date=2012 | volume=8| issue=10 | pages = e1002947

| doi = 10.1371/journal.pgen.1002947 | pmid = 23055938| pmc = 3464203

| arxiv = 1208.2238 | doi-access = free }}

He is among the group of scientists who have sequenced the Neanderthal genome in 2010.

{{cite journal

| title = Draft full sequence of Neanderthal Genome

| date = 7 May 2010

| doi = 10.1126/science.1188021 | pmid = 20448178 | volume=328 | issue = 5979 | pmc = 5100745

| vauthors = Green RE, Krause J, Briggs AW, Maricic T, Stenzel U, Kircher M, Patterson N, Li H, Zhai W, Fritz MH, Hansen NF, Durand EY, Malaspinas AS, Jensen JD, Marques-Bonet T, Alkan C, Prüfer K, Meyer M, Burbano HA, Good JM, Schultz R, Aximu-Petri A, Butthof A, Höber B, Höffner B, Siegemund M, Weihmann A, Nusbaum C, Lander ES, Russ C, Novod N, Affourtit J, Egholm M, Verna C, Rudan P, Brajkovic D, Kucan Z, Gusic I, Doronichev VB, Golovanova LV, Lalueza-Fox C, de la Rasilla M, Fortea J, Rosas A, Schmitz RW, Johnson PL, Eichler EE, Falush D, Birney E, Mullikin JC, Slatkin M, Nielsen R, Kelso J, Lachmann M, Reich D, Pääbo S

| journal = Science | pages = 710–22 | bibcode = 2010Sci...328..710G

}}

This was followed by the sequencing of a much higher quality Neanderthal genome, where the subject was from the Altai Mountains, in 2014.

{{cite journal

| last = Prüfer | first=K. | author2 = Racimo, F. | author3 = Patterson, N.

| author4 = Jay, F. | author5 = Sankararaman, S. |author6 = Sawyer, S.

| title=The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains

| journal = Nature | date = 2014 | origyear = Online 2013 | volume=505 | issue = 7481 | pages = 43–49

| doi = 10.1038/nature12886 | display-authors = etal | bibcode = 2014Natur.505...43P | pmid = 24352235 | pmc = 4031459

}}

These studies have uncovered some unexpected facts about the interbreeding between archaic and modern humans.

== Biography ==

Patterson was an only child who grew up in the Bayswater section of central London.Chapter 8; The Man Who Solved the Market by Gregory Zuckerman Patterson received his B.A. and Ph.D. in mathematics at Cambridge University. His doctoral advisor was John G. Thompson.

{{Cite web

| url = https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=26484

| title = Nicholas Patterson - the Mathematics Genealogy Project

}} He initially worked for the British code-breaking agency GCHQ and the Center for Communications Research in Princeton.

{{Cite web

| url = https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news/radcliffe-magazine/man-who-breaks-codes

| title = The Man Who Breaks Codes

| website = Radcliffe Magazine

| date = 2017-01-30

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190701204253/https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news/radcliffe-magazine/man-who-breaks-codes

| archive-date = 2019-07-01

}}

Following this cryptology work, Patterson worked at the quantitative trading firm Renaissance Technologies.

{{cite magazine

| last1 = Mayer | first1 = Jane | date= 19 March 2017

| url = http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency

| title = The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency

| magazine = The New Yorker

}}

In 2001, Patterson joined the Center for Genome Research at MIT, the Whitehead Institute. He briefly worked on gene expression data applied to cancer before switching to the study of human genetics.

In 2012, Patterson developed ADMIXTOOLS, a software package written in C that is currently widely used by population geneticists.{{cite journal |vauthors=Patterson N, Moorjani P, Luo Y, Mallick S, Rohland N, Zhan Y, Genschoreck T, Webster T, Reich D |title=Ancient admixture in human history |journal=Genetics |volume=192 |issue=3 |pages=1065–93 |date=November 2012 |pmid=22960212 |pmc=3522152 |doi=10.1534/genetics.112.145037 }}