Indian and Hindu Perspectives on Genetic Variation

该项目将吸引休斯敦大都市区的印第安人社区成员，以启发他们对基因研究和国际HapMap项目的看法。该项目将涉及：1)与社区领导人的访谈；2)社区成员的焦点小组；3)制定符合文化背景的教育材料、研究招募战略和知情同意文书的工作组；4)建立社区咨询委员会；5)采集血液样本，用于国际人类基因组图谱项目和其他人类遗传变异研究；6)样本采集后的后续行动。休斯顿地区印第安人社区的成年成员将参加这些社区协商。这是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裔美国人社区。 在对社区视角进行民族志调查后，研究人员将招募130名无关的个人捐献血液样本，以研究人类基因变异并创建人类单倍型图谱。除了产生与成功创建单倍型图谱直接相关的一些工作产品外，该项目还将通过在社区成员直接参与其既得利益的研究的背景下审查社区对遗传学的具体理解，大大增加关于社会背景对进行基因组研究的重要性的现有研究和学术研究。通过考察种族/民族的交集 在分类和基因组学方面，该项目将提供关于当代遗传研究中最有争议的方面之一的宝贵信息。

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.