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Analtech Research Technician featured in DNA article
January 28, 2008 at 02:36 PM
Analtech, Inc. Research Technician Jim Brannon was featured in an article in the Wilmington News Journal - a Gannet-owned daily publication - focusing on the use of DNA for a genographic project with National Geographic.
Excerpts from the article:
Begun in April 2005, the genographing project is a five-year genetic anthropology study that is mapping human migration patterns by collecting and analyzing DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of people around the world. The more information the project gathers, the more specific it can be about your particular ancestry.
Emerging science may one day make it possible for us to change anything we want about ourselves, says Spencer Wells, a geneticist and director of the genographic project. "We now have the tools to change our genome," he said. "We're going into the future at an incredible pace. Being the most intelligent species, we should know something about where we come from."
...
The strands of his (Brannon's) DNA connect him to a man who also lived in east Africa, about 60,000 years ago.
Brannon's lineage was traced through his Y chromosome, which only men have, and which he inherited intact from his father, who inherited it from his, all the way back to Africa.
Like Williams-Hughes' ancestors, Brannon's left Africa about 50 millennia ago. But his DNA evidence shows that as recently as 10,000 years ago, they probably were farming in the Mediterranean region.
Brannon also already had done more traditional genealogical research.
"Apparently," he said, "my paternal line drove directly from the Rift Valley into Egypt, across the Sinai, then migrated into Greece. So, the best I can surmise is that after establishing civilization, law and democracy, my forefathers headed to the British Isles and on to the Delaware Valley to crusade against slavery."
Look in the mirror. You, too, are looking at the results of 160,000 years of human history.
While humans trace their history and prehistory back 60 millennia, Williams-Hughes' and Brannon's ancestors -- and yours, too, according to the DNA evidence -- can be traced to the same mother 160,000 years ago. They have been unable to trace beyond that.
"It only makes sense that one of Analtech's key team members would be involved in a project like this," said General Manager Steven C. Miles about the article. "Analtech, Inc. has a long history of supplying tools for DNA analysis, from producing TLC plates for Western blotting transfers, P32-labeling adduct detection, or in situ hybridization, to the UNISCAN™ Video Densitometer used for reading TLC and DNA gel 'fingerprint' separations."
Foreseeing the need for a low-cost, commercial densitometry solution in the early-90s, Analtech's R&D team of Ned Dugan, Jim Brannon, and Steven Miles developed the UNISCAN™ Video Densitometer, which was also employed by leading forensic ink analysis experts as well as DNA fingerprinting.
Analtech currently sells the ChromaDoc-It imaging, analysis, and documentation system [Catalog# 96-30].
During this period Jim Brannon lobbied in Delaware for the establishment of DNA-paternity testing to replace archaic blood-type technologies and of a criminal forensics DNA testing lab within the State Medical Examiner's Office.
“From my earliest days studying the molecular biology of the gene under Nobel Laureate Salvador Luria at MIT,” Jim Brannon says, “I've seen the need for the best tools for conducting DNA research. Genetics is at the forefront of today's medical and forensic research, promising practical treatments for cancer and for salvaging the innocent from amongst the guilty in our legal system.”
“And Analtech has always been at the forefront of supplying the necessary tools for getting those jobs done,” he added.
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