Customers, who were often able to put Kittles's results together with bits of family oral history to fill in blanks in their family trees, had strong emotional responses to what they learned from African Ancestry's tests. That DNA flows through the entire family, Sampson says. He was looking for prominent African Americans to be guinea pigs, and unbeknownst to him, I had been interested more than interested, obsessed with my own family tree since I was 9 years old. Construction workers accidentally unearthed the graveyard in September 1991 while bulldozing the foundation for a federal office tower, and by the following summer, archaeologists dug up more than 400 graves. But our history didnt start with slavery; we came through slavery. In 2000, Harvard University Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr. sent his DNA to Rick Kittles, a geneticist at Howard University, to trace his ancestry.Dr. Some surnames, like Smith or Jackson or Brown, are common. in Sylvania, Georgia, in an area his family had inhabited for several generations, but he grew up in Central Islip, New York, on Long Island outside of New York City. As an Assistant Professor at Howard University in 1997, Dr. Kittles helped establish a national cooperative network to study the genetics of hereditary prostate cancer in African Americans. Kittles took on the role of scientific director. When word of his efforts leaked out, Howard found its switchboard jammed with calls from reporters and from ordinary African Americans who wanted to know how they could sign up to be tested. Loop is the open research network that increases the discoverability and impact of researchers and their work. ." "Kittles, Rick Any criticism Kittles encountered was overshadowed by the enthusiastic response he immediately received from African Americans interested in learning more about their backgrounds. "I used to always wonder in school why everybody looks different," Kittles told Alice Thomas of the Columbus Dispatch. I said, I have to reclaim what was taken away from me. Sampson told them he was like a tree from their forest that had been uprooted and stolen. He earned his PhD in Biological Sciences from the George Washington University and a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from Rochester Institute of Technology. ", By the time he reached his teenage years, Kittles found his curiosity intensifying as his white classmates began to identify more strongly with European ethnic groups. Born 1976(?) But that fraction of a percentage of DNA is more than what we had, Kittles says. Sometimes Ricky goes by various nicknames including Ricky A Kittles, Ricahrd Kittles, Richard Kittles, Richard A Kittles and Anthony Kittles. 23 Feb. 2023 . His collection of 10,000 samples "to me sounds pretty good," University of Chicago professor Chung-I Wu told the Chicago Tribune (as quoted by the Knight Ridder Tribune News Service). Now it contains more than 25,000 and counting. He is of African American ancestry, and achieved renown in the 1990s for his pioneering work in tracing the ancestry of African Americans via DNA testing. Associate Professor, The University of Chicago, Department of Medicine Kittles received his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from George Washington University. City of Hope's translational research and personalized treatment protocols. //]]>. A small crowd gathered as he stepped from the car, wearing a cobalt-blue safari suit and carrying a folder filled with papers. When he was young he hoped to become a rap musician, but he was curious from the start about human origins and differences. In October he watched an episode of CBSs 60 Minutes, in which a woman wept on-camera when African Ancestry traced her lineage to Sierra Leone. Kittles is well known for his research of prostate cancer and health disparities among African Americans. For African Americans, its hard to make that African connection, says Reverend Sampson. Be notified when an answer is posted. [14] Kittles has also been a part of many cutting edge developments including the progress of genetic markers and how an individuals ancestry can be used to help identify risk of disease and health outcomes. Dr. Kittles is an international leader on race and genetics, health disparities, and cancer genetics. SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: Dr. Kittles work at African Ancestry has ignited global interest and dialogue, as well as unprecedented focus on African ancestry tracing in U.S. and abroad. In 2003, Dr. Rick Kittles and Dr. Gina Paige collaborated on a groundbreaking way to help Black people reconnect to their roots beyond the limits of their current family trees. He is currently Scientific Director of the Washington, D.C.-based African Ancestry Inc., a genetic testing service for determining individuals' African ancestry, which he co-founded with Gina Paige in March 2003 . Dr. Kittles received a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from George Washington University in 1998. Dr. Kittles is well known for his research of prostate cancer and health disparities among African . Morocco? CO-FOUNDER & SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR, AFRICAN ANCESTRY, INC. INDUSTRY PIONEER, LEADING GENETICIST, ENTREPRENEUR, SPEAKE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: SENEGAL, NIGERIA TRIBES: MANDINKA AND HAUSA PIONEERING RESEARCHER: Dr. Rick Kittles is Co-founder and Scientific Director of African Ancestry, Inc. His work on tracing the genetic ancestry of African Americans has brought to focus many issues, new and old, which relate to race, ancestry, identity, and group membership. Particularly vocal is Troy Duster, a New York University sociologist who served on the committee advising the Human Genome Project on social and ethical issues and who has called genetic-testing proponents pied pipers of genealogical certainty. Kittles and his associates hoped that a project carried out mostly by African American researchers might break down these walls of mistrust. "About Us," African Ancestry, Inc., www.africanancestry.com (March 1, 2005). Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Kittles's tests also confirmed what researchers had long suspected; around 30 percent of African Americans had European ancestors, primarily due to the rape of slave women by white slaveholders. In part because its unearthing sparked controversy among African Americans, and because the find was archaeologically significant, the burial ground got plenty of press. He has published on genetic variation and prostate cancer genetics of African Americans. You hit a wall in the antebellum South. Young African Americans grow up with the debilitating idea that their history begins with slavery. More than a year and a half earlier, Sampson had swabbed the inside of his cheek with a sterile foam pad, which he mailed off to African Ancestry, a Silver Spring, Marylandbased company that uses genetic testing to trace African Americans genealogical roots. Horace Cayton spent his lifetime attempting to reconcile his two halves. All Rights Reserved View Essay - BLS Concept Race.pdf from BLS 1003 at Baruch College, CUNY. For African Americans, DNAs promise is particularly seductive. In 2003, Dr. Kittles and along with Co-founder Dr. Gina Paige pioneered a new marketplace for Black people looking to know where theyre from in Africa. Dr. Kittles is an international leader on race and genetics, health disparities, and cancer genetics. Contemporary Black Biography. Inheritor both of wealth and of the sla, AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES, a field of academic and intellectual endeavorsvariously labeled Africana Studies, Afro-American Studies, Black Studies, Pa, The African diaspora is a term that refers to the dispersal of African peoples to form a distinct, transnational community. Rick Kittles, PhD, received a BS in biology from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1989 and a PhD in biological sciences from George Washington University in 1998. Scientific observers questioned whether Kittles could generate useful results in view of the fact that DNA testing could illuminate only a small sliver of a person's ancestry, and questions were raised about the size of the African DNA database on which he planned to rely. Van Velsen | 1 Stefanie Van Velsen Feb 21, 2019. I mean, were talking about a very small part of your DNA, he says, less than 0.01 percent. The thinnest shred of genetic material0.1 percentaccounts for the entire spectrum of human variation; the other 99.9 percent of the genomes 3 billion nucleotides are identical from person to person. Rick then became a researcher and funded a project for Howard University researchers, in which they exhume remains of African Americans from an 18th-century graveyard. He served in these positions until 2004. MEDIA RESOURCE: Paige has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including The Breakfast Club, Hot 97-FM, Time Magazine, USA Today, 60 Minutes, NewsOne Now with Roland Martin, HuffPost Live with Marc Lamont Hill, The Joe Madison Show, Sister Circle Live, Essence Magazine, The New York Times, The Tom Joyner Morning Show, FOX Business News, Reuters, New York Times, Canal Media Company, Black Enterprise, Ebony, NPR, Metro Source Urban Radio, American Urban Radio Networks, The Grio.com and TheRoot.com among many others. In addition, he discovered, through of a DNA analysis, he descends mainly of people of Dakar, Senegal, and Nigeria's Hausa people. Kittles faced a public-relations problem of long standing in his new post, for the AAHPC Study Network was a government-funded project. In February 2008 he appeared in part 4 of "African American Lives 2". Rick Kittles, PhD - Dec. 15, 2010 TEDxNorthwesternU: Identity, Democracy After Anatomy Alice Dreger, PhD - Dec. 15, 2010 The Biologic Basis of Obesity Jeffrey Friedman, MD, PhD - Oct. 13, 2010 From Reading to Writing Life Code Juan Enriquez, PhD - Nov. 4, 2009 Personal Genomes and Web 2.0 Volunteerism George Church, PhD - May 12, 2009 [http://saxakali.com/Saxakali Wikipedia, Race (classification of human beings) The term race or racial group usually refers to the concept of categorizing humans into populations or groups on the basis of various sets of characteristics. His parentsDNA, however, revealed links to the Hausa people of northern Nigeria, the Ibo of eastern Nigeria, and the Mandinka of Senegal. For 85 percent of African Ancestrys clients, Kittles says, he finds an identical match to an ethnic group in his database, and he tells clients the present-day country or countries where that group resides. Encyclopedia.com. Want this question answered? Kittless job was to isolate DNA from the skeletons and determine whether their origins were African, American Indian, or European. Johnson concurs, adding that DNA reveals the limitations of the very idea of race. Scoops about Morehouse College . The village elders were expecting him. In the age of DNA screening, centuries-old rumors about plantation owners siring children with their female slaves have become, he says, verifiable fact. "I would say, 'Africa'" when other students asked him about his own roots, Kittles was quoted as saying in the Seattle Times. "Milestones Leading to the NHGC," National Human Genome Center, www.genomecenter.howard.edu/milestones.htm (March 1, 2005). This project involved setting up national network of mostly African-American medical scientists who would enroll 100 families with at least four members who were afflicted with prostate cancer; blood samples were subjected to genetic research, with the intent of finding a genetic marker that might explain the high incidence of the disease among African-American men. Since that first journey to Lunsar, he has made several trips back, as do many who trace their roots to Africa, and hes added his Temne name to his business card, just above the line that reads, Ordained by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sampsons congregation is starting an adoption program for Lunsars orphansIm always concerned about orphanages, he says, not least because I could have grown up in oneand this year he plans to bring over a few generators to power the villages schools. To analyze a clients data, Kittles looks for genetic markers, short sequences of DNA whose physical locations are known and whose variations differ from one population to another. But youre not necessarily related to any of them; its just a common name. Other last names are more rare. In July 2007 he told Englands Observer Magazine, There is a cultural feeling that DNA evidence is sacrosanct. 2021 African Ancestry, Inc. All rights reserved. Kittles, who joined Chicagos faculty in 2006, hardly imagined any scene like Sampsons Lunsar homecoming when he began constructing the DNA database that would become the foundation of African Ancestry. Over time, the concept of race has been seen The elders listened. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. "Other times I would make stuff up and say, 'I'm a Mandingo.' More distinctive lineages are restricted to particular regions and groups. He is of African-American ancestry, and achieved renown in the 1990s for his pioneering work in tracing the ancestry of African Americans via DNA testing. So when Rick Kittles, a young and ambitious geneticist at Howard University, proposed using DNA testing to pinpoint the exact region or tribe of their forebears, hundreds of African Americans . Addresses: Office Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology & Medical Genetics, 690C Tzagournis Medical Research Facility, 420 W. 12th Ave., Columbus, OH 43210. The Massachusetts-born preacher, who had grown up in Boston and spent the bulk of his career behind the pulpit of Fernwood United Methodist Church on Chicagos South Side, would be coming home to a place he had never been. The two talked about science and history, and finding a sense of place. specific ethnic groups of origin with an unrivaled level of detail, From approximately 1995 until 1999, as a researcher with the New York African Burial Ground Project (NYABGP), a federally funded project in New York City, in which Howard University researchers, led by anthropologist Michael Blakey, exhumed the remains of 408 African Americans from an 18th-century graveyard;[7] Kittles gathered DNA samples from the remains and compared them with samples from a DNA database to determine from where in Africa the individuals buried in the graveyard had come.