“An international group of scientists meeting in Washington called on Thursday for what would, in effect, be a moratorium on making inheritable changes to the human genome.” (Nicholas Wade for the New York Times). Our science advisors at Harvard Medical School and their colleagues were part of the conversation. We first heard about this bit of major but under-reported news from them.
Read MoreWe had our first visit to the Wu Lab today at Harvard Medical School and go to meet Dr. Ting Wu and her postdoc, Dr. Ruth McCole, in person. They’ve scoured the script and given us insights on everything from ultra-conserved elements of DNA (their research area) as a potential source of speciation to the pros and cons of writing our lead scientist as an African-American male to the need for more female geneticists in the script.
Dr. Ting Wu gives our script the same considered attention she might give an academic paper.
It was a privilege to tour the lab and attending a routine lab meeting. They’ve invited us back to see a “chalk talk” (a kind of lecture to share preliminary their preliminary research results) and to DC to attend a congressional briefing. It’s amazing how much this lab — and their partner outreach organization pgEd — care about sharing genetics with a broader public. That’s why they’ve agreed to come on as our science advisors.
Jacob’s & Carylanna’s first outline for ANYA.
Read More“When modern humans migrated out of Africa some 60,000 years ago, they found the Eurasian continent already inhabited by brawny, big-browed Neanderthals. We know that at least some encounters between the two kinds of human produced offspring, because the genomes of people living outside Africa today are composed of some 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal DNA. Two studies published concurrently in Nature and Science on Wednesday suggest that while the Neanderthal contribution to our genomes was modest, it may have proved vitally important.” (Ed Yong, National Geographic)
Image comparing Neanderthal and modern human anatomy by Joe McNally.
It’s no coincidence that this is the month we began writing ANYA and that ANYA’s fictional geneticist, “Dr. Seymour Livingston,” studies Neanderthal DNA.
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