Positive Selection: Is the Human Genome Evolving?

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/10/03/Dr_Katherine_Pollard_What_Makes_Us_Human

UCSF biostatistics professor Dr. Katherine Pollard describes The Chimp Genome Project, which lists 15 genes associated with human diseases that originate in chimps. While some people have the "new human version" of the gene, others still have the "chimp version." Evidence, she claims, that humans are evolving away from their ancestral version.

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Katherine Pollard received her Ph.D. and M.A. from UC Berkeley Division of Biostatistics under the supervision of Mark van der Laan. Her research at Berkeley included developing computationally intensive statistical methods for analysis of microarray data with applications in cancer biology. After graduating, she did a postdoc at UC Berkeley with Sandrine Dudoit. She developed Bioconductor open source software packages for clustering and multiple hypothesis testing.

In 2003, she began a comparative genomics NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship in the labs of David Haussler and Todd Lowe in the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering at UC Santa Cruz. She was part of the Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium that published the sequence of the Chimp Genome, and she used this sequence to identify the fastest evolving regions in the human genome.

In 2005, she joined the faculty at the UC Davis Genome Center and Department of Statistics. She moved to UCSF in Fall 2008.

Category:

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• genes
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• evolution
• evolving
• humans
• biology
• anthropology
• genetic
• disease
• scientists
• research
• study
• studies
• monkeys
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[FenchCJ]

No, she called one of the genomes the 'chimp version'. It's not clear from the video, but she assumes that her audience knows that we share a common ancestor with chimps and that it is that common ancestor which shares this particular gene.

[MPArmstrong84]

Jesus is gonna be pissed when he hears about this.

[adelle0001]

hindi ako sang-ayon sa videong ito.

[ThorTheOdinSon]

@TheRealSerps No, that is not always the case. Some mutations(new genetic trait) are hereditary and some are not. I'm confused with your first sentence because that is precisely what she is saying, selection aka "passing down your genes".

[cycophile]

@Sheiko10 yep, balanced, unbiased science in laboratories and the results of that in public schools.

[TheRealSerps]

But, you would think that the genetic trait would be passed down the family tree...,.... so that means if your parents have immnities to desese then you should too

but this is most deffinately not the case.

So i disagree with what she is saying...... not that we are evolving... just that we have evolved "better versions" and such already.

[YesIamJames]

@FenchCJ That would have been a better way of wording it to start with.

[PeeGeeBeeDee]

@DaBunne That's A Hickey From HELL!

[haaardstyle]

where is this at exactly? I know san francisco, but what building? the state college?