New tech can trace back DNA 1,000 yrs
Kounteya Sinha TNN
London: A new ground breaking technique has been developed which can locate the village your ancestors lived 1,000 years ago and hence trace back DNA formation. Previously, scientists had been able to link DNA formation to within a 700 km area which in a continent like Europe is very unreliable.
The Geographic Population Structure (GPS) tool created by Eran Elhaik from the University of Sheffield and Tatiana Tatarinova from the University of Southern California works similarly to a satellite navigation system. The new technique has been 98% successful in locating worldwide populations to their right geographic regions down to their village and/or island of origin.
The breakthrough has massive implications for life-saving personalized medicine, advancing forensic science and for the study of populations whose ancestral origins are under debate such as African Americans, Roma gypsies and European Jews. Genetic admixture occurs when individuals from two or more previously separated populations interbreed. This results in the creation of a new gene pool representing a mixture of the founder gene pools.
Elhaik said, “What we have discovered here is a way to find not where you were born but where your DNA was formed up to 1,000 years ago by modelling these admixture processes. What is remarkable is that we can do this so accurately that we can locate the village where your ancestors lived hundreds and hundreds of years ago — until now this has never been possible.”
Such processes were extremely common in history during migrations and invasions.
Discovery of a certain genotype might indicate the potential for a genetic disease and suggest that diagnostic testing be done. Also as scientists learn more about personalized medicine there is evidence that specific genotypes respond differently to medications — making this information potentially useful when selecting the most effective therapy and appropriate dosage.
RETRACING ANCESTORS
Source: http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=CAP/2014/05/02&PageLabel=23&EntityId=Ar02301&ViewMode=HTML
