Papers for

population genomics analysts

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Quantum optimization method improves reconstruction of Y chromosome evolutionary trees

A Block Decomposed QUBO Workflow for Chromosome-Y Phylogeny Reconstruction

Abstract: This paper sets out a computational workflow that reconstructs the phylogeny of human Y-chromosome populations from a Variant Call Format (VCF) file of biallelic Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP). The two classical phylogenetic decisions - topology selection and root placement - are cast as Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimisation (QUBO) problems. The workflow combines two QUBO formulations with an Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) decomposition strategy and a plug-in Digitized Counter-Diabatic Quantum Optimization (DCQO) solver, enabling large phylogenetic optimization problems to be executed across multiple classical or quantum computing resources. The DCQO gate-based optimizer drives each ADMM-block QUBO with short-depth counter-diabatic circuits in the impulse regime, without the necessity for an outer variational loop. The combination of ADMM decomposition and the DCQO block solver facilitates problem sizes that surpass the qubit budget of any individual digital quantum processing unit call, while maintaining the integrity of the original objective. The workflow extracts genotype information from VCF files, reconstructs topology and rooting through two QUBO formulations, and annotates the resulting tree using PhyloTree. The resultant data set comprises a Nexus-annotated rooted tree, in addition to diagnostic figures. The workflow demonstrates the potential of modest-scale QUBO formulations combined with ADMM decomposition to serve as a scalable alternative to greedy heuristics in the domain of population genomics.

Thu 24 SeptDistributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
The gist
Figuring out how different groups of people are related through their Y chromosomes can be tricky and needs a lot of computing power. The authors created a new step-by-step system that turns this problem into special math puzzles called QUBO, which computers and quantum devices can solve more efficiently. They split big problems into smaller chunks and use a new kind of quantum solver that doesn’t require complex repeated steps. This lets them handle bigger datasets than before while keeping accurate results, helping scientists understand human ancestry better.
Open → 2609.29856v1