fPcN interCultural:

defenders of free tribal life

The ambitious DNA profiling "Genographic project" (See.. http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic) which seeks to retrace the path of human settlement on Earth has been encountering resistance among indigenous people. After a boycott-appeal by the US- American Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism http://www.ipcb.org, now some Maori and African First Nations have also announced concerns over the project .

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The project which seeks to find the settlement of the Blue Planet beginning from Africa by means of genetic samples of several 100,000 inhabitants was started in April by IBM and the science magazine National Geographic. The main point of criticism by native people is the argument, that the research is in effect a modern form of colonialism, explained Paul Reynolds from the Maori Research Centre at Auckland University.

"Indigenous people already have a history of their origin which was communicated over generations by their ancestors. Further scientific proofs are thus decrepit."

Additionally the Maori see the extraction of DNA-samples as Tapu, meaning sacred or restricted.

Spencer Wells who is responsible for the five-year-project with an estimated cost of US$40 million dollars doesn't see these worries. He wants to track the accurate migration route of the human species, who probably settled the Earth beginning from Africa 200,000 years ago. Recent research suggests a volcanic eruption in Sumatra decimated the species Homo Sapiens to only 2,000 individuals 70,000 years ago.

The ambitious project in which every citizen can volunteer - the equipment for the DNA-saliva costs inclusive mailing expenses $137 Dollar - is primarily interested in indigenous people who are living in isolation. Wells had detected the descendants of Genghis Khan in Northern Pakistan by means of genetic analyses.

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*Wanted: DNA To Track Roots of Family Tree*

April 18, 2005 12:07PM

If scientists are right, all 6 billion people living on the planet today have ancestors who lived in Africa a long time ago. That concept has prompted some scientists to suggest that an African "Adam and Eve"--or at least a small group of genetically similar hunter-gatherers lie at the base of what is now a many-branched human family tree.

HP's unique policy-based approach to software change and configuration management enables organizations to reliably inventory, provision, secure and maintain software in compliance with any business policy, including Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. Download a case study here: http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=10200AHX46PI The National Geographic Society has begun what may be the ultimate search for human roots. For $99.95 and a swab of spit, anyone can join in and get a whole new perspective on the family tree. The society last week launched a five-year project to seek the origins of the human species and map the migration of ancient peoples out of Africa as they populated the globe.

The $40 million Genographic Project will collect blood samples from 100,000 indigenous peoples throughout the world, analyze them for genetic markers and try to determine their geographic origins.

"Our DNA tells a fascinating story of the human journey, how we are all related and how our ancestors got to where we are today," says population geneticist Spencer Wells, who will head the project.

To generate public interest, Geographic is also offering a test kit that will allow anyone to take a swab of saliva and send it to a laboratory for DNA analysis. For assisting in the project's finances, participants will get a "personalized genetic analysis," a peek at their "deep ancestral history"--and assurances of totalprivacy. The kits can be ordered at www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic. Individual test results are expected to take about six weeks. Lest anyone be seeking proof that their ancestors came over on the Mayflower, National Geographic cautions that the test will "not provide names for your personal family tree or tell you where your great-grandparents lived." The society does promise, however, that everyone will get a genetic profile that will tell them something about their "deep ancestors." Really deep. Most fossil evidence suggests that modern humans appeared in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago and began migrating to other continents about 60,000 years ago. Some scientists say there was a single migration, some say more. Asia, Europe and Australia were the next to be populated. The Americas were the last. If scientists are right, all 6 billion people living on the planet today have ancestors who lived in Africa a long time ago. That concept has prompted some scientists to suggest that an African "Adam and Eve"--or at least a small group of genetically similar hunter-gatherers lie at the base of what is now a many-branched human family tree.

"We have some indications from prior studies about the migration of people in the last 50,000 to 10,000 years," says Ajay Royyuru of IBM's Computational Biology Center, which is collaborating on the project.

"What's missing is the detail, the ability for everyone on the planet to be able to see, understand, exactly how they got to be where they are."

Ten research centers around the world will receive funding from the Waitt Family Foundation--founded by Gateway computer magnate Ted Waitt--to collect and analyze the DNA samples.

Each individual, from hair color to susceptibility to certain diseases, is the result of the unique combination of their parents' genetic code.

But some genetic material, the male Y chromosome and maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, is passed to the succeeding generations essentially unchanged, except for rare natural mutations that enable researchers to identify lineages extending back for thousands of years.

"Once a particular marker appears by mutation in a man, all of his descendants will also carry that marker," Wells says.

"If we compile information on a large set of markers and project them back in time using computer algorithms, the trail of mutations coalesces in a single Y-chromosome whose owner lived between 40,000 to 140,000 years ago in Africa."

Because that mutation, named M94, is now carried by every man on the planet, Wells likes to call this man "Genetic Adam." But even he concedes the term may be misleading. He says there were certainly other humans living at the same time. Their lineages simply didn't make it to the present.

Subsequent random mutations define later branches of the human family tree: lineages that crept out of Africa into Mesopotamia, some that headed east to Asia, and others that moved north, with the advent of agriculture, into the Caucasus and Europe. American Indians still carry marker mutations that first occurred among the natives of Siberia, and their genetic fingerprints came with them when their ancestors crossed the Bering Strait more than 12,000 years ago.

Wells says the dozens of other random mutations that have accumulated in the DNA of contemporary humans--in addition to Genetic Adam's M94 mutation--constitute a kind of genetic fingerprint that can reveal whether their distant ancestors passed through the Middle East or the land bridge from Siberia or crossed the ocean from Europe to America.

Initial efforts to use DNA to track human migrations, a project headed a few years ago by Stanford University population geneticist Luca Cavalli-Sforza, sampled the DNA from 52 indigenous groups and found five clusters of lineages that closely matched their ancestors' continent of origin.

With a goal of collecting more than 100,000 DNA samples representing every indigenous group on the planet, the National Geographic effort hopes to paint a much more detailed picture of human migration.

The society also hopes to avoid the political fuss that, more than a decade ago, prompted the federal government to withdraw support for a similar project that was intended to study the human genome.

Unlike the federally funded effort, which was criticized for overtones of racism in looking for genetic differences among populations, National Geographic will not gather any information on genetic diseases and will make all of its anthropological data freely available.

Wells says he feels a sense of urgency in the project.

He says as political upheavals, environmental disruption and air travel prompt more people to move, the world is becoming less genetically diverse. Indigenous populations in particular are under pressure.

"We need to take a genetic snapshot of who we are as a species before the geographic and cultural context are lost in the melting pot," he says.

© 2005 Cox News Service.
© 2005 Top Tech News.

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