Dr Will Barrie

Dr Will Barrie is a Junior Research Fellow at Magadalene.

Dr Will Barrie grew up in London and attended Westminster School. After a gap year spent exploring southern Africa, he went on to study natural sciences at Clare College (2015-2018). At that time, his primary interest was in evolutionary theory, particularly its application to animal behaviour. In his third year, he undertook a research project under Maanasa Raghavan at the Department of Zoology, focusing on language-gene co-evolution in the Americas. It became clear to him what an amazing resource ancient DNA is for the study of evolution, and how exciting the field was. With some encouragement from Maanasa, he applied to do a PhD with Eske Willerslev at the Department of Zoology.

Dr Barrie’s PhD work lay at the intersection of new ancient DNA panels, national-scale biobanks, and large genome-wide association studies. This allowed him to study the evolution of polygenic traits over the last 10,000 years in human populations with contrasting lifestyles, such as hunting-fishing-gathering versus farming. The core question he sought to answer was whether these differing lifestyles resulted in differential evolution, and how this may have impacted modern populations.

A chance encounter with Lars Fugger from the Oxford Centre for Neuroinflammation led Dr Barrie to focus on the evolutionary history of multiple sclerosis (MS). He discovered that the genetic variants underlying MS today had been under positive selection in the past, likely providing protection to people practising pastoralism between 5,000 and 2,000 years ago on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. This work was featured on the front cover of Nature in January 2024.

His subsequent research has focused on other autoimmune and infectious disease traits. He is also interested in studying metabolic disorders, which are thought to have been under strong recent selection due to dietary changes in human history. More broadly, Dr Barrie is keen to explore how evolutionary science can enhance our understanding of human health.

Research Interests

  • Genetics
  • Genomics
  • Evolution
  • Natural selection
  • Human health
  • Prehistory
  • Demography
  • Ancient DNA
  • Bioinformatics

Selected Publications

Barrie W., et al. Elevated Genetic Risk for Multiple Sclerosis Originated in Steppe Pastoralist Populations. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06618-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06618-z

Irving-Pease E. K., Barrie W., et al. The Selection Landscape and Genetic Legacy of Ancient Eurasians. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06705-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06705-1

Allentoft M. E., Barrie W., et al. Population Genomics of Postglacial Western Eurasia. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06865-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06865-0