[Paleopsych] NYT: Geographic Society Is Seeking a Genealogy of Humankind

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Geographic Society Is Seeking a Genealogy of Humankind
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/13/national/13gene.html
April 13, 2005

    By [1]NICHOLAS WADE

    A five-year project to reconstruct a genealogy of the world's
    populations and the migration paths of early humans from their
    ancestral homeland in Africa will be started today by the National
    Geographic Society and I.B.M., the society said in a statement.

    The goal of the program is to collect 100,000 blood samples from
    indigenous populations around the world and analyze them genetically.
    Researchers at 10 local centers and at the National Geographic Society
    in Washington will then assign the people who give blood to lineages
    that trace the routes traveled by their early ancestors.

    The program is an effort to accomplish the goals of the Human Genome
    Diversity Project, an initiative that was proposed by population
    geneticists in 1991.

    That project ran into a political furor that prevented it from
    receiving substantial government support. It was denounced by some
    cultural anthropologists, who said that looking for genetic
    differences among populations was tantamount to racism. And advocates
    for indigenous peoples portrayed it as a "vampire project" for
    extracting valuable medical information from the blood of endangered
    tribes while giving nothing in return.

    The proponents viewed their plan as complementing the Human Genome
    Project, then getting under way, because it would show how the
    sequence of DNA units in the human genome varied from one population
    to another. The project did proceed on a more modest basis, eventually
    collecting blood samples from 52 populations that were converted into
    1,000 cell lines. The first major analysis, published in 2002, showed
    that the subjects' genomes fell into five major clusters corresponding
    to their continent of origin and, in effect, to their race.

    This and many other studies have established that the branches of the
    human family tree on different continents coalesce to a single root,
    the ancestral human population that began to migrate from northeast
    Africa some 50,000 years ago. The routes of this migration are known
    in general outline but many details remain to be filled in.

    The National Geographic's program, if it succeeds, will create a
    collection of blood samples 100 times larger than the Human Genome
    Diversity Project did. Dr. Spencer Wells, a population geneticist at
    the society who is leading the program, said he hoped to head off
    charges of exploitation by offering money to the tribes for education
    and cultural preservation.

    Many indigenous peoples believe their ancestors have always lived in
    their home territory, a credo that will not be supported by genetic
    analysis of their blood samples. Dr. Wells said that he would "tell
    people up front" that some of the results may contradict what they
    believe. "The idea that we have all come on a journey from a common
    origin is intriguing to people," he said.

    The program will cost at least $40 million over five years, a National
    Geographic Society spokeswoman said. Sources of support include the
    Waitt Family Foundation of San Diego and the income expected from
    members of the public, who will be encouraged to send in cheek swabs
    and learn for $99.95 which male or female lineage they belong to.

    Male lineages, based on the Y chromosome, and female lineages, based
    on mitochondrial DNA, are mostly confined to specific continents,
    reflecting the fact that until recently people mostly lived and
    procreated in the place they were born.

    Dr. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, the Stanford University population geneticist
    who was a leading proponent of the Human Genome Diversity Project,
    said the National Geographic effort would "be a major addition to our
    knowledge." Dr. Cavalli-Sforza, a pioneer of population genetics, is
    an adviser to the program.

    But Dr. Kenneth Kidd, a population geneticist at Yale University,
    expressed reservations about the plan to preserve the blood samples as
    raw DNA. Because the DNA is finite, it cannot be shared with every
    scientist who may ask for some. In the Human Genome Diversity Project,
    by contrast, white blood cells from a sample were made essentially
    immortal before storage. Though it would cost an additional $200 to
    $300 to immortalize each sample, the cells last forever and the supply
    is inexhaustible.

    The National Geographic program will develop a lot of useful
    information "but to me it is not a properly and fully developed kind
    of study" because the samples cannot be made available to everyone in
    the scientific community, Dr. Kidd said.

    Dr. Wells said a large amount of DNA would be available from the 5 to
    10 milliliters of blood drawn in each sample. He cited the extra cost
    of making permanent cell lines and also said that some indigenous
    peoples opposed the notion of having their cells live on after their
    deaths.

    Besides tracing the routes of early human migrations, the National
    Geographic program will study other questions of population history
    like the origin of the Han Chinese, the lost homeland of the
    Indo-European languages and whether a genetic trail was left by the
    armies of Alexander the Great.

References

    1. http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=NICHOLAS%20WADE&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=NICHOLAS%20WADE&inline=nyt-per