Ancient DNA, Neanderthals, and Human Health

Why do genetic disease risks vary across the globe? Did our ancestors mate with Neanderthals? How healthy were ancient humans? The answers to these questions can be found in the genomes of ancient and modern humans. The complex histories of our ancestors are written in DNA and natural selection contributes to differences in disease risks across populations. There is genetic evidence that some of our ancestors mated with Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other unknown “ghost” populations. These ancient couplings are relevant to human health, as having large amounts of Neanderthal DNA increases the likelihood neurological disorders. Intriguingly, genomic medicine approaches can be applied to ancient samples – even when remains are incomplete. On a broad scale, genetic disease risks are similar for ancient and modern humans. However, individuals who lived in the recent past appear to have been healthier than individuals who lived in the deep past. Disease risks are not constant, they continue to evolve. Just as medicine benefits from knowledge of family history, so too can public health genomics benefit from knowledge of our species’ history.

Dr. Joseph Lachance received a B.A. in Biology from University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Genetics from Stony Brook University. As a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania, he received an NIH Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellowship. Dr. Lachance is currently an Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology, where he has been a tenure-track faculty member since January 2015. In 2019 he received the CTL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, and in 2020 he was named one of Georgia Tech’s Faces of Inclusive Excellence. He is active in multiple scientific societies and has been elected to the executive committee of the American Association of Anthropological Genetics. Dr. Lachance has published over 25 papers, and this work has appeared in Cell, Nature, Cancer Research, and the American Journal of Human Genetics. He studies human population genetics and the genetic causes of health inequities. His research focuses on how hereditary disease risks have evolved over time, and he is building predictive models of health and disease. This research program bridges the gap between evolutionary genomics and genetic epidemiology. Current projects in the his lab include using genetic data to infer human history, studying the evolution of disease risks using ancient DNA, and working with collaboarators in Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa to identify genetic variants that increase the risk of prostate cancer in men of African descent. His research is primarily funded by the National Institutes of Health, including a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and a grant from the National Cancer Institute.

[Bungifun]

Great presentation but it should be stressed that this is risk association. Those risks come into effect under certain circumstances, mostly diet influenced. Research on ancient bones show the hunter gatherers were in much better health than really agricultures. This may actually mean that you can live with more risk alleles when you can avoid the triggering factors. But when your life circumstances change so that you do trigger the risks, you'll start getting selective pressure to take out those risk alleles.