Genographic Project
The Genographic Project was launched by the U.S. National Geographic Society and IBM in cooperation with the University of Arizona and Family Tree DNA in April 2005 and is a five-year anthropological study with the aim of the historical migration of humanity to map. These are DNA samples are collected by over 100,000 people on all five continents.
Unique to this project is that the public can attend. For $ 100 ( Price 2009, plus tax and shipping ) you can have it delivered a self-test package in the world and send a self- extracted mouth swab to National Geographic. After the analysis, the result will be published anonymously in an internet database. One uses genetic markers on the mitochondrial DNA ( HVR1 ) to determine the relationship in the maternal line, and on the Y chromosome ( 12 microsatellite markers and haplogroups SNPs ) to determine the relationship in the paternal line. Each participant in the study can then check its own genetic origin and parentage of maternal line. By April 2009, more than 300,000 people interested already had participated and 30 August 2009 was the National Geographic Channel under the title The Human Family Tree (about the human family tree ) a documentary that was created using the present results to date.
The 40 - million -US - dollar project is a privately funded collaboration between National Geographic, IBM and the Waitt Family Foundation. All proceeds from the sale of self-test packages to benefit a fund for projects to protect culture, proposed by natives.
Prominent members include Spencer Wells ( project managers, scientists from National Geographic ), Himla Soodyall (scientists ), Ajay Royyuru (Head of Bioinformatics, IBM).
Comments and criticism
The Genographic Project is often compared to the failed Human Genome Diversity Project ( HGDP ) from the 1990s, which failed after a dispute over the administration of the DNA information. The head of the new project will make their information available to the public and promise a comprehensive Aboriginal consultation. Some of the leading members of the Genographic Project were also members of the HGDP. The Chairman of the Advisory Board, for example, Luigi Cavalli - Sforza, the geneticist who originally proposed the HGDP.
Shortly after the announcement of the Genographic Project in April 2005, the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism protested ( " Council of the natives against Biokolonialisierung " ) against the project, its connections to the HGDP and called for a boycott of IBM, Gateway Computers and National Geographic. IPCB Council member Marla Big Boy, a tribal member of the Lakota, says: "Our creation stories and languages convey the information about our ancestors and our ancestors, we do not need a genetic test in order to know where we come from. ". ( orig.: "Our creation stories and languages carry information about our genealogy and ancestors We do not need genetic testing to tell us where we come from.". )
The discussion of the results and assumptions based on this study is comparable to criticism and approval by Professor Bryan Sykes, a pioneer in the use of mitochondrial DNA in the analysis of maternal relatedness. Sykes documented his scientific work in his book The Seven Daughters of Eve, which contains in addition to the demonstrable content, including designs and assumptions in an entertaining and scientifically provable form.