The Human Genome Diversity Project is headed by Luigi
Cavalli-Sforza of Stanford University, as well as several
other scientists in academic institutions, and seeks to
survey the genetic diversity of the human species. It is
presently NOT part of the Human Genome Project. As
currently configured, the Genome Project is aimed at
developing the tools, resources, and infrastructure that
will enable many consequent biological activities and
research efforts to proceed more effectively, but not to
focus on any one effort to the exclusion of others. For
more information about the Genome Diversity Project, you
should read Nature, Feb. 25, 1993, Vol. 361, page 675;
another article is in Science, Jan. 15, 1993, vol. 259, pp.
312-313; and a long review is in Science, June 21, 1991,vol.
252, pp. 1614-1617.
Dan Drell
The project you refer to is called the Human Genome
Diversity Project and is not part of the Human Genome
Project. The former is an initiative that is being pushed
by population geneticists, anthropologists, sociologists,
and linguists. To date it has no funding.
The Human Genome Project was initiated by the Department of
Energy to develop the resources and technologies needed to
construct maps and determine the DNA sequence of each of the
twenty four different human chromosomes and to complete such
mapping and sequencing efforts. It is the only federally
funded project to ever institute studies of the ethical,
legal, and social implications of the work, ie. about $7
million per year, as part of the ongoing scientific project.
The Project is now co-sponsored by the National Institutes
of Health and is a vast international enterprise, but it
does not include applications of the chromosome maps and
sequences. Nor does it include any reproductive biology.
It is a technology and resource development project.
The Human Genome Diversity Project is really not a project
but an initiative, since it has no funding. The people
involved in planning it are quite a different community of
scientists than those involved in the Human Genome Project.
The aim of the genome diversity initiative, as I understand
it, is to collect and preserve samples of DNA, ie.
peripheral blood cells, from some fraction of isolated and
remote tribes and populations that are in danger of becoming
extinct due to influences and impacts from the outside
world. It is felt that much can be learned from these
samples about whole tribes and populations and their origins
before their gene pools are diluted by young people leaving
and outsiders intermarrying with them, both of which are
apparently happening at high rates. I believe that most of
the groups in the proposed study are in New Guinea, the
Pacific Islands, Asia, South America and Africa.
The people you really need to contact for more information
are those trying to get this initiative underway: Dr. Marcus
Feldman, Biological Sciences, Stanford U., and Dr. L. Luca
Cavalli-Sforza, Genetics Department, Stanford, U. I do not
have more complete addresses.