Collaborative research: Time transect of ancient genomes of Indigenous North Americans

该项目将利用基于社区的方法以及生物技术和种群遗传学的进步来研究北美土著人民在过去5000年中的进化。由于研究的时期是社会转型时期，因此该项目评估了在人类基因组中留下印记的社会结构变化的基因组影响。该项目将作为将土著知识与基因组学相结合的模式，以调查北美人口在与欧洲人接触之前的进化。该项目还支持对土著学生和社区成员进行基因组理论和分析培训的方案。基因组学土著居民暑期实习（SING）项目每年举办一次研讨会，提供分子生物学、生物信息学和其他基因组学相关领域的实践经验。该计划为土著学生在科学领域提供了一个支持网络，同时也为涉及土著社区的基因组研究的伦理和社会影响提供了思想孵化器。SING项目的长期目标是增加土著研究人员和社区成员在涉及科学的职业中担任领导者的人数。该项目考察了在欧洲殖民之前，北美人口的动态社会进程如何随着时间的推移影响人类基因组。具体来说，将从太平洋西北地区跨越5000年的古代个体中产生全基因组序列。以土著知识为基础，将对这些序列进行人口组成的时间分析，以评估该地区的人口历史和人口事件。该项目还将评估社会结构和文化介导的配偶交换对所研究的土著民族基因组进化的影响。该项目扩大了整合人类学和基因组信息的潜力，以了解文化和生物学如何在人类进化史中相互作用。本项目由生物人类学和北极社会科学项目共同资助。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will use community-based methods along with advances in biotechnology and population genetics to study the evolution of Indigenous peoples of North America during the past 5,000 years. As the time period under study was a period of social transformation, the project evaluates the genomic impact of changes in social structures that leave signatures in human genomes. The project will serve as a model of integration of Indigenous knowledge with genomics to investigate the evolution of populations in North America prior to European contact. The project also supports a program for the training of Indigenous students and community members in genomic theory and analyses. The Summer internship for INdigenous peoples in Genomics (SING) program runs an annual workshop to provide hands-on experience in molecular biology, bioinformatics, and other genomics-related fields. The program provides a support network for Indigenous students in the sciences and also functions as an incubator of ideas on ethical and social implications of genomic research that involves Indigenous communities. The long-term goal of the SING program is to increase the number of Indigenous researchers and community members serving as leaders in careers involving the sciences.The project examines how, prior to European colonization, dynamic social processes of populations of North America have influenced human genomes through time. Specifically, whole-genome sequences will be generated from ancient individuals spanning five millennia in the Pacific Northwest. With Indigenous knowledge as a foundation, a temporal analysis of population composition will be performed on the sequences to assess demographic histories and demographic events in the region. The project will also evaluate the impacts of social structure and culturally mediated mate exchange on the evolution of genomes from the Indigenous peoples studied. The project expands the potential for integrating anthropological and genomic information to learn how culture and biology interact in human evolutionary history. This project is jointly funded by the Biological Anthropology and Arctic Social Science Programs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.