300 hear director of huge DNA study (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Published: 04.04.2006    300 hear director of huge DNA study  
By Jane Erikson  ARIZONA DAILY STAR
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/123049

 With 6.5 billion people alive in the world today, it may be hard to think of
humans as an endangered species.  
We may not be — but the incredible diversity of the human race is melting
away, said the head of a landmark effort to trace the genetic history of modern
humans back 60,000 years.  
"We are going through a process of mass cultural extinction," Spencer Wells,
director of the National Geographic Society's $40 million Genographic Project,
said here Monday.  
Wells, a geneticist and anthropologist, was visiting the University of
Arizona's Human Origins Genographic Laboratory, a partner in the Genographic
Project.  
Its goal is to collect 100,000 DNA samples from isolated groups of people
around the world to create, as Wells described it, "the largest picture of
human variation ever created."  
That variation is illustrated by the fact that more than 6,000 languages are
spoken across the world, Wells said.  
But half of those languages will be extinct by the end of this century, he
said.   "We are losing a language every two weeks," he said.  
If Wells cannot stop that cultural hemorrhage, he intends at least to document
the genetic identities of different groups of indigenous people in places like
the Arctic Circle, the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia, and the central
African country of Chad.  
>From those DNA profiles he expects to trace peoples' ancestry back to one man
and one woman — whom scientists call Adam and Eve — who lived in Africa
between 60,000 and perhaps 200,000 years ago.  
"My goal as a scientist is to explain the patterns of human diversity," Wells
told his audience of more than 300 people. "We all seem to be so different —
but how different are we?"  
The Genographic Project — funded in part by IBM and the Waitt Family
Foundation — is working with 10 laboratories around the world, each of which
will process 10,000 DNA samples from these isolated groups of people over the
next five years.  
The samples are easily obtained by swabbing the inside of a person's mouth for
saliva that contains all the DNA researchers need.  
Members of the public also can participate in the study, by ordering kits from
the National Geographic Society, collecting their own DNA samples and mailing
them back.  
All samples from the public are processed through the UA Human Origins lab,
headed by geneticist Mike Hammer. Results, available in six to eight weeks,
trace a person's ancestry back thousands of years to specific regions of the
world, and the specific groups who inhabited those regions.  
"Oh yes," audience member Jeanine Dunn said when asked if she planned to order
a genotyping kit. "I've been a genealogist for over 30 years," she said. 
"I'm just tremendously impressed with what I've heard here today."  
As of Monday, the Genographic Project had sold more than 135,000 "genotyping"
kits through its Web site — www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic — to raise
$3.5 million for the project's Legacy Fund.  
That money will be used to fund additional research and provide resources for
the indigenous groups who participate in the study, Wells said. The first of
those projects will be announced at the Genographic Project's world conference
next month in South Africa, he said.
 
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