Article
Ethnic Studies
Zoey Eddy, Payton A. Small, Diego Padilla-Garcia, Brenda Major
Summary: Black participants evaluated individuals claiming mismatched racial identities more favorably when a majority amount of corroborating genetic information was provided, especially when the target identified as Black and had a majority amount of genetic evidence.
CULTURAL DIVERSITY & ETHNIC MINORITY PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Family Studies
Chelsea D. Williams, Tricia Smith, Amy Adkins, Chloe J. Walker, Arlenis Santana, Fantasy T. Lozada, Jinni Su, Danielle M. Dick
Summary: The study found that male students of color in the testing condition experienced an increase in ERI affirmation from pre-test to post-test, while male SOC in the control condition experienced a decrease in ERI affirmation. However, there were no significant differences in ERI affirmation change between female SOC, White males, or White females in the testing and control conditions.
EMERGING ADULTHOOD
(2021)
Editorial Material
Urology & Nephrology
Jabril R. Johnson, Rick A. Kittles
Summary: There is a significant disparity in prostate cancer incidence and mortality between men of West African ancestry and men of European ancestry. Identifying different tumor genetic markers and immunomodulating signals in patients with diverse genetic backgrounds may help reduce the disparities in prostate cancer prognosis, treatment outcomes, and mortality in high-risk racial groups.
NATURE REVIEWS UROLOGY
(2022)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Epifania Arango-Isaza, Marco Rosario Capodiferro, Maria Jose Aninao, Hiba Babiker, Simon Aeschbacher, Alessandro Achilli, Cosimo Posth, Roberto Campbell, Felipe I. Martinez, Paul Heggarty, Scott Sadowsky, Kentaro K. Shimizu, Chiara Barbieri
Summary: This study analyzes the genetic ancestry of the Mapuche, one of the largest indigenous groups in South America. The findings reveal significant differences between the Mapuche ancestors and those in the Far South, with no further migration waves from the north. Additionally, there is evidence of gene flow between the Central and Southern Andes, suggesting the southward spread of cultural traits. The study also emphasizes the importance of integrating genetic narrative with indigenous knowledge and perspectives.
Article
Cell Biology
Pradiptajati Kusuma, Murray P. Cox, Graeme Barker, Herawati Sudoyo, J. Stephen Lansing, Guy S. Jacobs
Summary: Borneo, a significant region for ancient Southeast Asian human remains and rock art, had traditional hunter-gatherer Punan communities. The connection between these communities and the present-day agriculturalist inhabitants who speak Austronesian languages and have composite genetic ancestry is unclear. By analyzing the genetic ancestry of Bornean Punan Batu, Tubu, and Aput, this study reveals deep ancestral connections and a time depth of over 7,500 years. The Punan communities largely lack the genetic signals of agricultural Borneans and demonstrate unexpected complexity in the origins and dispersal of Austronesian-expansion-related ancestry.
Article
Psychology, Social
Steven O. Roberts, Carmelle Bareket-Shavit, Michelle Wang
Summary: From the perspective of U.S. Black Americans, a connection to Black ancestry and the historical hardship is crucial in racial categorization. U.S. Black Americans tend to categorize individuals with Black ancestry and White experiences as Black, and are more likely to associate their racial ancestry with hardship. Differences in identification with targets with ancestral hardship exist between U.S. Black Americans and U.S. White Americans.
JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Editorial Material
Genetics & Heredity
Elizabeth G. Atkinson
Summary: A new study suggests that the correlation of causal genetic variants is largely similar across different ancestry backgrounds, as estimated using admixture.
Editorial Material
Oncology
Cathy Eng, Andreana N. Holowatyj
Summary: Understanding the molecular features of colorectal cancer in different populations is crucial in reducing the disparities in disease burden. Research shows that individuals of African ancestry have a higher frequency of KRAS, AOC, and PIK3CA mutations, suggesting that specific treatment and clinical trials should be considered for these mutations in African patients.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Andrew B. Conley, Lavanya Rishishwar, Maria Ahmad, Shivam Sharma, Emily T. Norris, I. King Jordan, Leonardo Marino-Ramirez
Summary: Biobank projects generate genomic data for thousands of individuals, requiring computational methods such as genetic ancestry inference tools. Current methods do not scale to biobank-sized datasets. The Rye algorithm was developed for scalable genetic ancestry inference, outperforming existing programs in accuracy and runtime performance on a dataset from the UK Biobank. Rye utilizes principal component analysis and optimization techniques to estimate genetic ancestry at both continental and subcontinental levels.
NUCLEIC ACIDS RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Sociology
Wendy D. Roth, Rochelle Cote, Jasmyne Eastmond
Summary: The widespread use of genetic ancestry testing has led to questions about its impact on society. This study investigates whether taking genetic ancestry tests and receiving results of specific ancestries increases racial diversity in the social networks of White Americans. Surprisingly, the findings show that the racial diversity in the social networks of test-takers actually decreases after testing. The results suggest that test-takers reassess their perceptions of others' race.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Vikas Kumar, E. Andrew Bennett, Dongyue Zhao, Yun Liang, Yunpeng Tang, Meng Ren, Qinyan Dai, Xiaotian Feng, Peng Cao, Ruowei Yang, Feng Liu, Wanjing Ping, Ming Zhang, Manyu Ding, Melinda A. Yang, Berdimurodov Amridin, Hasanov Muttalib, Jianxin Wang, Qiaomei Fu
Summary: Despite the continuation of Bronze Age ancestry into the Iron Age in Uzbekistan, individuals from the Iron Age show diverse ancestries related to Iranian farmers, Anatolian farmers, and Steppe herders, along with a small amount of West European Hunter Gatherer, East Asian, and South Asian Hunter Gatherer ancestry. An increase in Anatolian farmer-like ancestry and a decrease in Iranian farmer-like ancestry were observed in Uzbekistan Iron Age individuals compared to BMAC populations from Uzbekistan, indicating increased admixture played a significant role in the transition from Bronze to Iron Age. This mixed ancestry is also observed in other parts of the Steppe and Central Asia, suggesting widespread admixture among local populations.
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Yi Ding, Kangcheng Hou, Ziqi Xu, Aditya Pimplaskar, Ella Petter, Kristin Boulier, Florian Prive, Bjarni J. Vilhjalmsson, Loes M. Olde Loohuis, Bogdan Pasaniuc
Summary: Polygenic scores (PGSs) have limited portability across different groupings of individuals, hindering their equitable use. We demonstrated that PGS accuracy decreases individual-to-individual along the continuum of genetic ancestries, even within traditionally labelled 'homogeneous' genetic ancestries. Our results highlight the need to move away from discrete genetic ancestry clusters towards the continuum of genetic ancestries when considering PGSs.
Article
Ethnic Studies
Olivia Y. Y. Hu, Xiang Lu, Wendy D. D. Roth
Summary: The genomic revolution has a significant impact on the scholarship of racial conceptualization. It may lead to beliefs in racial essentialism as genomic research focuses on small variations between ancestral groups. Genetic ancestry tests (GATs) are commonly used to communicate the consequences of genomic revolution to the general public, highlighting the importance of understanding how test-takers conceptualize race. Through analyzing 108 in-depth interviews with test-takers from the United States and Canada, we identify a typology of racial conceptualization that goes beyond a dichotomy and explores a continuum between social constructivism and genetic essentialism. We also find that regardless of their previous race concepts, test-takers believe GATs reinforce their existing beliefs. Our results suggest that people tend to selectively interpret genetic information to confirm rather than transform their race concepts.
ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES
(2023)
Editorial Material
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Rex L. Chisholm
Summary: The use of race and ethnicity in medicine is contentious due to the imprecision of these social constructs as proxies for ancestry. Belbin et al. present an interesting framework for characterizing population substructure in diverse urban environments.
Article
Medicine, General & Internal
C. Hsu, Wei Yang, Rishi V. Parikh, Amanda H. Anderson, Teresa K. Chen, Debbie L. Cohen, Jiang He, Madhumita J. Mohanty, James P. Lash, Katherine T. Mills, Anthony N. Muiru, Afshin Parsa, Milda R. Saunders, Tariq Shafi, Raymond R. Townsend, Sushrut S. Waikar, J. Wang, Myles Wolf, Thida C. Tan, Harold I. Feldman, Alan S. Go
Summary: The study found that using serum creatinine levels to estimate GFR without taking race (or genetic ancestry) into account led to systematic misclassification. Estimating GFR with cystatin C produced similar results while eliminating negative consequences of race-based approaches.
NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE
(2021)
