Mountain Laboratory of Anthropological Genetics

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Detecting Human Variation at the Level of DNA



The current focus of the Mountain Lab is upon the highly informative but difficult to detect human variation found at the level of DNA. While not easily observed, DNA variation stores a great deal of information regarding the population processes of human history, as well as the evolution of our morphology, physiology, and behavior. We are currently surveying the maternally and paternally inherited genetic variation of a set of linguistically diverse peoples of Tanzania, addressing questions regarding the origins of our species, linguistic evolution, and the population history of East Africa. We are also developing a new set of genetic systems. These systems have already proven to be informative regarding major human migrations and population bottlenecks throughout the last 100,000 years of human history; we believe they will also be valuable within medical genetics research.

More broadly speaking, our areas of research interest include: the origins of modern humans; comparisons of genetic and linguistic variation among human populations; ethical issues regarding human genetics; phenotype and the interactions among genotype, environment, and culture; biology and concepts of race; the extent to which genetic data can reveal details of human history; the origins of and relationships among the peoples of Africa, particularly East Africa; the development of statistical tools for analyzing a variety of human population genetic data; and, comparisons of the genetic variation of ancient and living peoples.

For more information about specific Mountain Laboratory research projects, please select from the list on the left.