The Genographic Project
Encyclopedia
The Genographic Project, launched on April 13, 2005 by the National Geographic Society
National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society , headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical...

 and IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

, is a multi-year genetic anthropology study that aims to map historical human migration
Historical migration
It is thought that pre-historical migration of human populations began with the movement of Homo erectus out of Africa across Eurasia about a million years ago. Homo sapiens appears to have colonized all of Africa about 150 millennia ago, moved out of Africa some 80 millennia ago, and spread...

 patterns by collecting and analyzing DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 samples from hundreds of thousands of people from around the world.

Overview

Field researchers at 11 regional centers around the world collect DNA samples from indigenous
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....

 populations. The project also sells self-testing kits: for US$100 anyone in the world can order a kit with which a mouth scraping (buccal swab
Buccal swab
A buccal swab is a way to collect DNA from the cells on the inside of a person's cheek. Buccal swabs are a relatively non-invasive way to collect DNA samples for testing. Buccal means cheek or mouth....

) is obtained, analyzed and the DNA information placed on an Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 accessible database. The genetic marker
Genetic marker
A genetic marker is a gene or DNA sequence with a known location on a chromosome that can be used to identify cells, individuals or species. It can be described as a variation that can be observed...

s on mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria, structures within eukaryotic cells that convert the chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate...

 (HVR1
Hypervariable region
A hypervariable region is a location within nuclear DNA or the D-loop of mitochondrial DNA in which base pairs of nucleotides repeat or have substitutions...

) and Y-chromosomes (12 microsatellite markers and haplogroup
Haplogroup
In the study of molecular evolution, a haplogroup is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor having the same single nucleotide polymorphism mutation in both haplotypes. Because a haplogroup consists of similar haplotypes, this is what makes it possible to predict a haplogroup...

-defining SNPs) are used to trace the participant's distant ancestry, and each customer is provided with their genetic history. As of April 2011 more than 400,000 people had bought a test kit, and the success of the project has spawned a broader interest in direct-to-consumer genetic testing.

The Genographic Project is undertaking widespread consultation with indigenous groups from around the world. Genographic Project public participation kits are processed by Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) using the Arizona Research Labs at the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...

.

The project is a privately-funded, not-for-profit collaboration between the National Geographic Society
National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society , headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical...

, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

 and the Waitt Family Foundation. Part of the proceeds from the sale of self-testing kits support the Genographic Project's ongoing DNA collection, but the majority are ploughed into a Legacy Fund to be spent on cultural preservation projects nominated by indigenous communities.

Team members

Team members include:
  • Spencer Wells
    Spencer Wells
    Spencer Wells is a geneticist and anthropologist, an at the National Geographic Society, and Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 Professor at Cornell University. He leads The Genographic Project.-Education:...

    , project director (National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence)
  • Jin Li
    Jin Li
    Jin Li is a Chinese geneticist. Jin is a professor at the National Human Genome Center in Shanghai as well as at the Institute of Genetics of Fudan University...

    , principal investigator
    Principal investigator
    A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....

    , East Asia
    East Asia
    East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...

  • Theodore Schurr, principal investigator
    Principal investigator
    A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....

    , North America
    North America
    North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

  • Fabricio Santos, principal investigator
    Principal investigator
    A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....

    , South America
    South America
    South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

  • Jaume Bertranpetit, David Comas and Lluis Quintana-Murci, principal investigator
    Principal investigator
    A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....

    s, Western Europe
    Western Europe
    Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

     and Central Europe
    Central Europe
    Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

  • Pierre Zalloua, principal investigator
    Principal investigator
    A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....

    , Middle East
    Middle East
    The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

     and Northern Africa
  • Himla Soodyall
    Himla Soodyall
    Himla Soodyall is a South African human geneticist involved in finding some of the oldest human genetic lines. She mainly focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa.-References:...

    , principal investigator
    Principal investigator
    A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....

    , Sub-Saharan Africa
    Sub-Saharan Africa
    Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...

  • Elena Balanovska, principal investigator
    Principal investigator
    A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....

    , North Eurasia
    North Eurasia
    North Eurasia often refers to the aggregate of* European countries lying north of ones adjacent to Mediterranean and Black Sea area;* Russia ;...

  • Ramasamy Pitchappan, principal investigator
    Principal investigator
    A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....

    , India
    India
    India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

  • Alan Cooper, principal investigator
    Principal investigator
    A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....

    , Ancient DNA
    Ancient DNA
    Ancient DNA is DNA isolated from ancient specimens. It can be also loosely described as any DNA recovered from biological samples that have not been preserved specifically for later DNA analyses...

  • John Mitchell, principal investigator
    Principal investigator
    A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....

    , Australia and New Zealand
  • Lisa Matisoo-Smith, principal investigator
    Principal investigator
    A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....

    , Oceania
    Oceania
    Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...

  • Ajay Royyuru, head of computational biology
    Computational biology
    Computational biology involves the development and application of data-analytical and theoretical methods, mathematical modeling and computational simulation techniques to the study of biological, behavioral, and social systems...

    , IBM
    IBM
    International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

  • Simon Longstaff, advisory board chair (director of the St James Ethics Centre
    St James Ethics Centre
    St James Ethics Centre is a fully independent not-for-profit organisation which provides a non-judgemental forum for the promotion and exploration of ethics and ethical decision-making. The Ethics Centre works with business, professions, community groups, governments and individuals to encourage...

    )
  • Meave Leakey
    Meave Leakey
    Meave G. Leakey is together with her husband Richard Leakey one of the most renowned contemporary paleontologists. She studies the origin of mankind in Africa.-Flat-Faced Man of Kenya:...

    , advisory board member
  • Merritt Ruhlen
    Merritt Ruhlen
    Merritt Ruhlen is an American linguist known for his work on the classification of languages and what this reveals about the origin and evolution of modern humans. Amongst other linguists, Ruhlen's work is recognized as standing outside the mainstream of comparative-historical linguistics...

    , advisory board member
  • Colin Renfrew, advisory board member
  • Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
    Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
    Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza is an Italian population geneticist born in Genoa, who has been a professor at Stanford University since 1970 .-Books:...

    , advisory board member
  • Wade Davis
    Wade Davis
    Edmund Wade Davis is a Canadian anthropologist, ethnobotanist, author and photographer whose work has focused on worldwide indigenous cultures, especially in North and South America and particularly involving the traditional uses and beliefs associated with psychoactive plants...

    , advisory board member
  • Kim McKay
    Kim McKay
    Kim Coral McKay, AO is an Australian environmentalist, author, entrepreneur and international marketing and communications consultant. She cofounded the Clean Up Australia organisation and the Clean Up The World campaign., a project held in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Programme...

    , National Geographic Consultant and Genographic Legacy Fund committee member

Use of genetic markers

The Genographic Project relies on the identification of genetic markers. Most human DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 is a shuffled combination of genetic material passed down the generations. There are, however, parts of the human genome
Genome
In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....

 that pass unshuffled from parent to child. These segments of DNA are only changed by occasional mutations—random spelling mistakes in the genetic code. When these spelling mistakes are passed down to succeeding generations, they become markers of descent.

Different populations have different genetic markers, and by following them through the generations scientists are able to identify the different branches of the human tree, all the way back to their common African root. Indigenous populations provide geographical and cultural context to the genetic markers in their DNA. These clues can help recreate past migration
Human migration
Human migration is physical movement by humans from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. Historically this movement was nomadic, often causing significant conflict with the indigenous population and their displacement or cultural assimilation. Only a few nomadic...

 patterns.

Criticism

See also: Archaeology of the Americas
Archaeology of the Americas
The archaeology of the Americas is the study of the archaeology of North America , Central America, South America and the Caribbean...

, Models of migration to the New World
Models of migration to the New World
There have been several models for the human settlement of the Americas proposed by various academic communities. The question of how, when and why humans first entered the Americas is of intense interest to archaeologists and anthropologists, and has been a subject of heated debate for centuries...


Shortly after the announcement of the project in April 2005, the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism
Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism
The Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism is a non-profit organization based in Nixon, Nevada for the purpose of political activism against the emergent field of population genetics for human migration research...

, (IPCB), released a statement protesting about the project, its connections with the HGDP
Human Genome Diversity Project
The Human Genome Diversity Project was started by Stanford University's Morrison Institute and a collaboration of scientists around the world. It is the result of many years of work by Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, one of the most cited scientists in the world, which has published extensively in the use...

, and called for a boycott of IBM, Gateway Computers, and National Geographic. Around May 2006, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is the UN's central coordinating body for matters relating to the concerns and rights of the world's indigenous peoples. "Indigenous person" means native, original, first people and aboriginal. There are more than 370 million indigenous...

 (UNPFII) recommended suspending the project. Concerns were that the knowledge gleaned from the research could clash with long held beliefs leading to the destruction of their culture. They also feared that it could endanger land rights and other benefits.

In May 2006, the representatives of Indigenous went to UNPFII contesting any involvement in the testing. “The Genographic Project is exploitative and unethical because it will use Indigenous peoples as subjects of scientific curiosity in research that provides no benefit to Indigenous peoples, yet subjects them to significant risks. Researchers will take blood or other bodily tissue samples for their own use in order to further their own speculative theories of human history.”

UNPFII conducted investigations into the objectives of the Genographic Project, and concluded that since the project was "conceived and has been initiated without appropriate consultation with or regard for the risks to its subjects, the Indigenous peoples, the Council for Responsible Genetics concludes that the Indigenous peoples’ representatives are correct and that the Project should be immediately suspended.

As of December 2006 some federally recognized tribes in North America have declined to take part. "What the scientists are trying to prove is that we’re the same as the Pilgrims except we came over several thousand years before,” said Maurice Foxx, chairman of the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs and a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag. "Why should we give them that openly?" However, more than 70,000 indigenous participants from the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania had joined the project as of April 2011.

See also

  • Genealogical DNA test
    Genealogical DNA test
    A genealogical DNA test examines the nucleotides at specific locations on a person's DNA for genetic genealogy purposes. The test results are not meant to have any informative medical value and do not determine specific genetic diseases or disorders ; they are intended only to give genealogical...

  • Genetic diversity
    Genetic diversity
    Genetic diversity, the level of biodiversity, refers to the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species. It is distinguished from genetic variability, which describes the tendency of genetic characteristics to vary....

  • Human genetics
    Human genetics
    Human genetics describes the study of inheritance as it occurs in human beings. Human genetics encompasses a variety of overlapping fields including: classical genetics, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, biochemical genetics, genomics, population genetics, developmental genetics, clinical genetics,...

  • Human genetic variation
    Human genetic variation
    Human genetic variation refers to genetic differences both within and among populations. There may be multiple variants of any given gene in the human population , leading to polymorphism. Many genes are not polymorphic, meaning that only a single allele is present in the population: that allele is...

  • Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups
    Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups
    In human genetics, a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup is a haplogroup defined by differences in human mitochondrial DNA. Haplogroups are used to represent the major branch points on the mitochondrial phylogenetic tree...

  • Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups
    Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups
    In human genetics, a Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup is a haplogroup defined by differences in the non-recombining portions of DNA from the Y chromosome ....

  • Mitochondrial Eve
    Mitochondrial Eve
    In the field of human genetics, Mitochondrial Eve refers to the matrilineal "MRCA" . In other words, she was the woman from whom all living humans today descend, on their mother's side, and through the mothers of those mothers and so on, back until all lines converge on one person...

  • Y-chromosomal Adam
    Y-chromosomal Adam
    In human genetics, Y-chromosomal Adam is the theoretical most recent common ancestor from whom all living people are descended patrilineally . Many studies report that Y-chromosomal Adam lived as early as around 142,000 years ago and possibly as recently as 60,000 years ago...

  • Y-DNA haplogroups by ethnic groups
    Y-DNA haplogroups by ethnic groups
    Listed here are notable ethnic groups by Y-DNA haplogroups based on relevant studies. The data is presented in two columns for each haplogroup with the first being the sample size and the second the percentage in the haplogroup designated by the column header...


External links

Official sites
Supporting participants
News articles
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