2014-02-22 23:03:14. In his biomedical research, Kittles often confronts the puzzle of race; too many studies rely on imprecise thinking. Your result is not based on a single data point, says Paige, noting that African Ancestry has performed some 12,000 tests to date, a figure she says translates into genealogical information for more than 50,000 people. "Kittles, Rick dont lead to Africa at all, but to Europe. Knight-Ridder Tribune News Service, September 9, 2003, p. 1. Kittles himself found German ancestry on his father's side and identified a Portuguese forbear in Paige's background, and he observed that his own research, as well as other work showing the frequency of African ancestry among Europeans and European Americans, further weakened the idea of race as a scientific category. He served in these positions until 2004. Houston Chronicle, February 24, 2005, p. Star-1. One siblings results hold true for the others, and parents who swab their cheeks save their children the trouble. And increasingly theyre using genetics to do so. 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. By this time it was the late 1990s; Kittles earned his PhD in 1998 and took a job as assistant professor of microbiology at Howard University. Contact: Nichole Taylor,Taylor Communications Group Kittles was raised in C 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. [1] On je afroamerikog porijekla, a poznat je 1990-ih po svom pionirskom radu u praenju porijekla Afroamerikanaca putem DNK testiranja . Through DNA testing, he discovered he's a descendant of the Mende people of Sierra Leone. [14] Nowadays, Kittles and his team have been busy conducting genetic sequencing trials to try and find variations in genes that affect a person's response to drugs.[12]. Sampson met with Lunsars 40 elders, all but one of them men, and all Muslim, save one Christian. Like many African Americans, we knew nothing about where in Africa our ancestors were from, he says. African Ancestrys African DNA database remains the largest and most comprehensive ever collected, making its lineage matching the most reliable in the marketplace. For his original DNA research and analysis restoring the African ethnic and national identities of descendants of enslaved Africans living in the Diaspora, Dr. Kittles deserves honors and recognition. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click on download. He served in these positions until 2004. I cant wait to go to Bioko Island to have the sun in that part of the region on my body and know that Im home.. Now for the first time in three centuries, Gates says, we can begin to reverse the Middle Passage. In 2006 he featured African Ancestry in African American Lives, a PBS documentary on black Americanssearch for their roots. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. Customers could choose to have either the paternal line (though the Y chromosome, the genetic marker responsible for the development of male characteristics) or the maternal line (through mitochondrial DNA) investigated; a discount was available for the pair. LEADING GENETICIST: Dr. Kittles is very active in the field of human genetics and genetic anthropology, particularly as it relates to complex disease and health disparities in African Americans. Some of the coverage discussed Kittless genetic analysis of the remains. Using the companys proprietary African Lineage Database along with close collaboration with historians, anthropologists and linguists, Dr. Kittles safeguards accuracy and integrity in determining African countries of origin and Tribes. [http://www.physanth.org/positions/race.html AAPA Statement on Biological Aspects of Wikipedia, Shomarka Keita Shomarka Omar Sundiata Yahye (S.O.Y.) The way Kittles tells it, requests from African Americans swelled to a roar. Until this past November, when Gates introduced his own company, AfricanDNA, Kittless was the only genetic-testing lab set up specifically to find AmericansAfrican roots, and he became a focal point for scholarsdiscomfort not only with the technologys accuracy, but also its implications. Rick Antonius Kittles is an American biologist specializing in human genetics and a Senior Vice President for Research at the Morehouse School of Medicine. When you say African American,are you talking about Kenya? The African Perspective in India. Born 1976(?) When he was young he hoped to become a rap musician, but he was curious from the start about human origins and differences. He holds a B.S. Rick Kittles, Ph.D., is Professor and founding director of the Division of Health Equities within the Department of Population Sciences at the City of Hope (COH). If you want to measure environment, say that. As a sociological concept, race remains a powerful force, but as a scientific proposition, it is a muddle. He is also known for appearing in films and TV series like Malibu's Most Wanted (2003), Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005), Next (2007), Miracle at St. Anna (2008) among others. degree in biology from the State University of New York at Brockport (1991) and a Ph.D. in biology from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. (1998). "I would say, 'Africa'" when other students asked him about his own roots, Kittles was quoted as saying in the Seattle Times. Most clients, though, come to Kittles knowing little about their African forebears and expecting nothing in particular. [12] Kittles has been an advocate for studying prostate cancer among African Americans for much of his scientific career; his primary concern however, was to find out how genes and the environment increased the risk of prostate cancer. Rick Antonius Kittles (born in Sylvania, Georgia, United States) is an American biologist specializing in human genetics and a Senior Vice President for Research at the Morehouse School of Medicine. He is currently the leader 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 February 2003. window.__mirage2 = {petok:"0Ev87EeWO4E_u.VbiRlJhxTuEeIgHupvKirG_G1EQrI-86400-0"}; When you look at our family history, what gets reinforced is that we were enslaved, he says. Rick Antonius Kittles was born in 1976(?) Request Answer. Sampson isnt alone. Filmmaker Spike Lee, former United Nations ambassador Andrew Young, and actors LeVar Burton and Vanessa Williams were three of African Ancestry's celebrity clients, while over 2,000 others paid about $300 or $350 for the company's DNA tests in its first year in business. People are riveted by the possibility that they can find the tribe theyre descended from, says Harvard University African Americanstudies professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., but the Middle Passage prevented us from really finding out. Between the western shore of Africa and the eastern shore of America, names, identities, and religions vanished. He then helped establish the National Human Genome Center at Howard University. Theyve got all these diamonds, but theres so much exploitation., Sampson has read the critical press about Kittless work. Three decades after Roots author Alex Haley followed family lore, slave-ship records, and a few snatches of inherited tribal dialect to Kunta Kinte, a Gambian warrior sold into slavery in 1767, African Americans are unearthing their ancestry in growing numbers. Addresses: Office Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology & Medical Genetics, 690C Tzagournis Medical Research Facility, 420 W. 12th Ave., Columbus, OH 43210. It made news in London and Sydney. 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. (February 23, 2023). ntaylor@africanancestry.com. //