News from

Genetics

Reset All Filters
210 Results
Western bias in human genetic studies is ‘both scientifically damaging and unfair’
A large group of people sit on the ground outside, roughly in a circle around a group of presenters in the African landscape.

Including underrepresented groups in genomics studies, as Sarah Tishkoff (addressing participants above) has done through her career of studying African population diversity, is essential to reap the benefits of such studies, according to a new commentary in the journal Cell. (Credit: Tishkoff lab)

Western bias in human genetic studies is ‘both scientifically damaging and unfair’

In a commentary in the journal Cell, PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff and Giorgio Sirugo shine a light on the lack of ethnic diversity represented in genomic studies, and the consequences for health and medicine.

Katherine Unger Baillie , Karen Kreeger

Genetic research has a white bias, and it may be hurting everyone’s health

Genetic research has a white bias, and it may be hurting everyone’s health

PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff and Giorgio Sirugo of the Perelman School of Medicine collaborated on a paper that concluded that predominately European genetic databases may lead to difficulties treating people from other racial backgrounds. “If we don’t include ethnically diverse populations, we are potentially going to be exacerbating health inequalities,” said Tishkoff.

Genetic research is the wrong way to make sense of ADHD

Genetic research is the wrong way to make sense of ADHD

Jason Schnittker of the School of Arts and Sciences said that linking mental illness to genetics won’t do much to reduce stigma. Instead, he proposed, “it would help to show that mental illnesses are common, even if they’re not diagnosed, and while they can be severe, they can be managed effectively.”

Largest-ever Alzheimer’s gene study reveals five new genes that increase risk
The amyloid precursor protein

The amyloid precursor protein

Largest-ever Alzheimer’s gene study reveals five new genes that increase risk

The International Genomic Alzheimer’s Project analyzed information from more than 94,000 individuals and found new information on the underlying causes of Alzheimer disease, including five new genes that increase risk for the disease. 

Penn Today Staff

Has a second person with HIV been cured?

Has a second person with HIV been cured?

The Perelman School of Medicine’s Pablo Tebas spoke about his research, which used a zinc finger nucleases, a precursor to CRISPR, to modify white blood cells and reinfuse them into patients. While not a cure for HIV, combined with other methods, this approach “might be the way of the future,” said Tebas.

A shared past for East Africa’s hunter-gatherers
A few people stand in front of a building talking to a larger group of gathered people listening.

With the help of a local translator, Simon Thompson (in blue plaid shirt) from Sarah Tishkoff’s lab and Dawit Wolde-Meskel (in yellow shirt), a collaborator from Addis Ababa University, explain the research project on African population genetics to the Argobba population, Ethiopia. After the project is presented, the researchers answer any questions. (Credit: Tishkoff lab)

A shared past for East Africa’s hunter-gatherers

PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff, Laura Scheinfeldt, and Sameer Soi use data from 50 populations to study African genetic diversity. Their analysis suggests that geographically far-flung hunter-gatherer groups share a common ancestry.

Katherine Unger Baillie

How one gene in a tiny fish may alter an aquatic ecosystem
a tiny fish swims under green, murky water

Threespine stickleback, which occupy lakes across the northern latitudes, are a tiny fish with an outsize impact on evolutionary research. Penn biologist Seth Rudman has found that a single gene affects the way they interact with their environment. (Photo: Seth Rudman)

How one gene in a tiny fish may alter an aquatic ecosystem

Linking genomics to evolution to ecology, the work takes an unusual approach to reveal broad implications of how species adapt to their local environment.

Katherine Unger Baillie

The diversity of rural African populations extends to their microbiomes
A group of people, some holding sacks, next to a small rustic house and under trees

Hadza people gather to receive a government-provided food supply of beans and maize. (Photo: Alessia Ranciaro/Tishkoff Lab)

The diversity of rural African populations extends to their microbiomes

In the largest study of its kind, researchers led by PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff, Matthew Hansen, and Meagan Rubel investigated the gut microbiomes of people from Botswana and Tanzania, and illuminate the impact of lifestyle, geography, and genetics in shaping the microbiome.

Katherine Unger Baillie