NPR Radiolab program on DNAPrint Genomics, "Race Doesn't Exist. Or Does It?"
Dan G
testing technology...
Race Doesn't Exist. Or Does It?
November 28, 2008
Radiolab, from NPR and WNYC
Listen:
http://www.wnyc.org/flashplayer/player.html#/play/%2Fstream%2Fxspf%2F113754
Tony Frudakis and his company DNAPrint Genomics believe they can
identify hair, eye, and skin color and point to the genetic ancestry
of test subjects by scanning their DNA. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce
goes to investigate, using a sample of Jad's DNA to find out what they
could discover. The results? Surprising to all. We found another
surprised DNA test subject, Wayne Joseph, a high school principal and
writer on the topic of race.
Thanks go to Sam1933 for posting this on Investors Hub.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=33809134
Related link -- Ancestry Magazine article on DNAPrint Genomics:
Cousin Barack and Me
Howard Wolinsky, Ancestry Magazine
http://www.ancestrymagazine.com/2008/07/features/cousin-barack-and-me/
Happy Holidays to all,
Daniel Gannon
Portland, Oregon, USA
Dan G
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/11/28/segments/113754
xtropian
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/11/28
There are four segments here, that you can listen to, online:
--
Race
The U.S. Census defines five races, and an "other" category. When the
human genome was first fully mapped in 2000, Bill Clinton, Craig
Venter, and Francis Collins took the stage and pronounced that "The
concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis."
Great words spoken with great intentions. But what does that mean and
where does it leave us? It doesn't seem to have wiped out our evolving
conversation about race.
Race Doesn't Exist. Or Does It?
Tony Frudakis and his company DNA Print Genomics believe they can
identify hair, eye, and skin color and point to the genetic ancestry
of test subjects by scanning their DNA. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce
goes to investigate, using a sample of Jad's DNA to find out what they
could discover. The results? Surprising to all. We found another
surprised DNA test subject, Wayne Joseph, a high school principal and
writer on the topic of race.
Race and Medicine
BiDil was the first drug approved by the FDA for a specific racial
group. We want to know what the ramifications are for using skin color
as a diagnostic tool for diseases and disorders that can't be seen.
Producer Soren Wheeler talks to Dr. Jay Cohn, developer of BiDil and
cardiac specialist. Sociologist Troy Duster and epidemiologist Richard
Cooper discuss race, medicine, slippery slopes, and the dangers of
false stereotypes.
Journalist Malcolm Gladwell has thought about stereotypes. Growing up
in Ontario to an English father and Jamaican mother, he became one of
the top sprinters in his age-group and he noticed that a surprising
number of the most successful runners in Canada were from Jamaica. It
got him wondering about the relationship between race and athletic
success, and he's pretty sure his initial ideas were wrong.
Can You See Race?
Teacher David Sherrin presents an exercise called "Sorting People" to
his 9th graders at the Facing History School. The outcome? Well, have
a listen. How accurately can you guess a person's background from
their appearance? Reporter Ali Abbas takes us to Baghdad, where that
question has become an issue of life and death as tensions and
violence have risen between Sunni and Shi'a in Iraq, and safety can
come down to the spelling of your name.
--
List of some stations that have carried Radiolab... courtesy of
Sam1933 on Investors Hub:
State City Station
AZ Phoenix KJZZ
CA Fresno KVPR
CA Los Angeles KPCC
CA Rohnert Park KRCB
CA San Diego KPBS
CA San Francisco KALW
CA San Francisco KQED
CO Denver KCFR
CT Hartford WNPR
DC Washington DC WAMU
FL Ft. Pierce WQCS
FL Miami WLRN
FL Orlando WMFE
IA Iowa Iowa Public Radio
IL Chicago WBEZ
IL Detroit WDET
IL Rockford WNIJ
IN Elkhart WVPE
IN Indianapolis WFYI
KY Louisville WFPL
KY Murray WKMS
KY Richmond WEKU
LO New Orleans WWNO
MA Amhearst WNNZ-AM
MA Boston WBUR
MA Boston WGBH
MA Cape & Islands WCAI/WNAN/WZAI
MD Baltimore WYPR
MI Ann Arbor/Detroit WUOM
MI Kalamazoo WMUK
MN Mpls/St. Paul KNOW
MO Kansas City KCUR
MO St. Louis KWMU
NC Ashville WCQS
NC Charlotte WFAE
NC Greensboro WFDD
NC Raleigh WUNC
NE Omaha KIOS
NH New Hampshire WEVO
NV Las Vegas KNPR
NY Buffalo WNED-AM
NY New York WNYC-AM
NY New York WNYC-FM
NY North Country Public Radio WSLU
NY Oswego WRVO
NY Rochester WXXI-AM
OH Cincinnati WVXU
OH Cincinnati WNKU
OH Cleveland WCPN
OH Columbus WCBE
OH Columbus WOSU-AM
OH Kent/Cleveland WKSU
OR Portland KOAC-AM
PA Pittsburgh WYEP
PA State College WPSU
RI Providence WRNI-AM
TX Austin KUT
TX Dallas KERA
TX San Antonio KSTX
UT Salt Lake City KUER
VA Harrisonburg WMRA
VT Burlington Vermont Public Radio
WA Portland KOPB-FM
WA Seattle KUOW
WI Milwaukee WUWM
WV West Virginia West Virginia Public Radio
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/11/28/segments/113754
I hope everyone had a great weekend!
xtropian
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
November 28, 2008
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j2O0spxR8aRN6vw7n67gl2XlAluAD94O401O0
FYI, DNAPrint Genomics is listed as a member of PMC (Personalized
Medicine Coalition,) under Diagnostic Companies:
http://www.personalizedmedicinecoalition.org/about/pmc_members.php
Ancestry Magazine article about DNAPrint Genomics, and its technology
that detects ancestry:
Cousin Barack and Me
Howard Wolinsky, Ancestry Magazine
http://www.ancestrymagazine.com/2008/07/features/cousin-barack-and-me/
Times are changing. It is no longer widely claimed that there is no
biological/genetic basis for race. Only a few die-hard zealots, and
those living out of the loop, seem to not get this, yet. Many of the
same scientists who had claimed that, have retracted those claims, in
the face of emerging evidence. Listen to the NPR Radiolab program
about this. It is an informative, fair, and balanced program:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/11/28
Times are changing...
xtropian
22 Nov 2006 23:01:11 GMT
Source: Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N22205028.htm
"LONDON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - One person's DNA code can be as much as 10
percent different from another's, researchers said on Wednesday in a
finding that questions the idea that everyone on Earth is 99.9 percent
identical genetically."
Wikipedia entry on Copy Number Variation in the Human Genome:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_number_variation
The seminal Nature paper I mentioned -- Note the lengthy,
international, multi-racial, list of well-respected scientists, who
authored this paper:
Global variation in copy number in the human genome
Nature 444, 444-454 (23 November 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature05329;
Received 13 June 2006; Accepted 10 October 2006
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7118/full/nature05329.html
Note, the bulk of CNV differences were found to be along "racial"
lines (African, Asian, and European sample groups,) with the data best
fitting a model of seperate (old) origins of the three groups,
according to the Nature paper's large panel of authors.
What was previously taboo, isn't any more. That the incoming Obama
administration is embracing these genetic differences, in a medical
context (personalized medicine,) is a sign of the times. It's OK to
do science in this area, now. With Obama's election to America's
highest post, we have moved beyond the bad old days of blind
discrimination, and can now move forward, to better, more enlightened,
honest, just, and mature, times.
To a better world,
xtropian
Nature 444, 444-454 (23 November 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature05329;
Received 13 June 2006; Accepted 10 October 2006
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7118/full/nature05329.html
See Figure 7, and the comments surrounding it.
"We obtained the optimal clustering with the assumption of three
ancestral populations, with the African, European and Asian
populations clearly differentiated (Fig. 7)."
"A triangle plot showing the clustering of 210 unrelated HapMap
individuals assuming three ancestral populations (k = 3). The
proximity of an individual to each apex of the triangle indicates the
proportion of that genome that is estimated to have ancestry in each
of the three inferred ancestral populations. The clustering together
of most individuals from the same population near a common apex
indicates the clear discrimination between populations obtained
through this analysis. The clustering was qualitatively similar to
that obtained previously with a similar number of biallelic Alu
insertion polymorphisms on different African, European and Asian
population samples60."
Paradigms change with emerging evidence.