Mark D. Shriver

Last updated
Mark D. Shriver
Mark D. Shriver.jpg
Shriver in 2013
Alma mater State University of New York
University of Texas Health Science Center
Scientific career
Fields Population genetics
Institutions Pennsylvania State University
Morehouse College

Mark D. Shriver is an American population geneticist. He leads genetic research at the Pennsylvania State University. [1]

Contents

Education

Shriver studied Biology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, earning a B.S in 1987. He furthered his studies and earned a Ph.D. in Genetics at the University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston in 1993.

Career

Shriver's work is focused on admixture mapping, [2] signatures of natural selection, and phenotypic variability in common trait variation. A major goal of his work is to apply these methods and understanding of genomic variation to studies of common diseases (e.g. obesity, type 2 diabetes, adaptation to altitude, hypertension and prostate cancer), and to normal variation, in particular skin pigmentation and response to UVR. More recently, his research has focused on the genetics of facial features. [3] [4] [5] [6]

Shriver has consulted for and appeared in several documentaries about ancestry, race, and recent human evolution. Most notably, he was featured in the 2006 PBS series African American Lives and the 2008 series African American Lives 2 (hosted by Henry Louis Gates) . He also appeared in the BBC Two film Motherland: A Genetic Journey (2003), the BBC documentary, "The Difference", French television's "Tracked Down by Our Genes" (2007), and UK Channel 4's "Human Mutants" (2004).

Shriver is a professor of genetics at the Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania. From 2009 to 2010, he was on sabbatical as an associate professor of biology at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2006, he was a visiting professor at both Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin.

Personal life

Shriver has made public the discovery of his own recent West African ancestry (22%). [7] [8] In 2007, he married science writer and former broadcast meteorologist Katrina Voss.

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Founder effect</span> Effect in population genetics

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancestry-informative marker</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noah Rosenberg</span> American scientist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">DNAPrint Genomics</span>

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Genetic admixture occurs when previously isolated populations interbreed resulting in a population that is descended from multiple sources. It can occur between species, such as with hybrids, or within species, such as when geographically distant individuals migrate to new regions. It results in gene pool that is a mix of the source populations.

Mark Stoneking is a geneticist currently working as the Group Leader of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, of Max Planck Gesellschaft at Leipzig, and Honorary Professor of Biological Anthropology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany. He works in the field of human evolution, especially the genetic evolution, origin and dispersal of modern humans. He, along with his doctoral advisor Allan Wilson and a fellow researcher Rebecca L. Cann, contributed to the "Out of Africa" theory in 1987 by introducing the concept of Mitochondrial Eve, a hypothetical common mother of all living humans based on mitochondrial DNA.

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Vanessa Hayes is a geneticist conducting research into cancer genomics and comparative human genomics. She leads a research group at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney Australia and holds the Petre Chair of Prostate Cancer Research at the University of Sydney.

Sarah Anne Tishkoff is an American geneticist and the David and Lyn Silfen Professor in the Department of Genetics and Biology at the University of Pennsylvania. She also serves as a director for the American Society of Human Genetics and is an associate editor at PLOS Genetics, G3, and Genome Research. She is also a member of the scientific advisory board at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lluís Quintana-Murci</span> Spanish biologist and researcher

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References

  1. Barbara A. Koenig; Sandra Soo-Jin Lee; Sarah S. Richardson. Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age. Rutgers University press. p. 362.
  2. Technology Review August 11, 2008, "Genealogy Gets More Precise."
  3. The Wall Street Journal March 27, 2009, "To Sketch a Thief: Genes Draw Likeness of Suspects."
  4. ABC News Feb. 18, 2009, "CS-Eye: DNA Could Reveal a Perp's Face."
  5. ScienceDaily Feb. 17, 2009, "Mixed Population Provides Insights Into Human Genetic Makeup."
  6. The Medical News (News-Medical.Net) February 16, 2009, "New insights into human genetic makeup."
  7. Sailer, Steve (May 8, 2002). "Analysis: White prof finds he's not". UPI .
  8. The Free Library (TheFreeLibrary.com) April 9, 2005, "Code of many colors: can researchers see race in the genome?"