Indian and Hindu Perspectives on Genetic Variation

该项目将吸引休斯顿大都会地区的印度社区成员，以征求他们对基因研究和国际单基因图谱项目的看法。该项目将包括：1)采访社区领袖；2)社区成员焦点小组；3)工作组制定适合文化的教育材料、研究招募策略和知情同意文书；4)成立社区咨询委员会；5)收集用于国际HapMap项目和其他人类遗传变异研究的血液样本；6)样品采集后的随访。休斯敦地区印第安社区的成年成员将参加这些社区磋商。这是一个探索这些问题的理想环境，因为休斯顿大都市区有大量来自印度的移民人口和几个成熟的印度裔美国人社区。

This project will engage members of Indian communities in the Houston metropolitan area to elicit their perspectives on genetic research and the International HapMap Project. The project will involve: 1) interviews with community leaders; 2) focus groups with community members; 3) working groups to develop culturally appropriate educational materials, research-recruitment strategies, and informed-consent instruments; 4) creation of a community advisory board; 5) collection of blood samples for use in the International HapMap Project and other studies of human genetic variation; and 6) follow-up after sample collection. Adult members of Indian communities in the Houston area will participate in these community consultations. This is an ideal setting in which to explore these issues since the Houston metropolitan area has a large immigrant population from India and several well established Indian-American communities. Following ethnographic investigations of community perspectives, researchers will recruit 130 unrelated individuals to donate blood samples for the purpose of studying human genetic variation and creating a human haplotype map. In addition to generating a number of work products of immediate relevance to the successful creation of a haplotype map, the project will add considerably to existing research and scholarship on the significance of social affiliations for the conduct of genomic research by examining community-specific understandings of genetics in a context in which members of the community are directly involved in a study in which they have a vested interest. By examining the intersection of racial/ethnic classifications and genomics, the project will provide valuable information about one of the most contentious aspects of contemporary genetic research.