All are invited to hear a fascinating lecture by Dr. Keith Cheng on skin color and genetics. Dr. Cheng will describe his recent discovery of a single gene that largely determines light or dark skin color and perhaps eye and hair color differences between European and African peoples. He will discuss the scientific, social and ethical implications of his findings.
Keith Cheng, M.D., Ph.D.
Jake Gittlen Cancer Research Foundation, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA
One of the enduring mysteries of biology has been the origin of skin color differences in humans — the most striking of which distinguish people of European and African ancestry. Geneticist Keith Cheng from Penn State College of Medicine was using a lighter-skinned zebrafish mutant, golden, to study the relationship between mutation and cancer. Upon finding that the differences between lighter and darker pigment cells were similar in zebrafish and humans, he hypothesized that the human version of this same gene would play an important role in human skin color, and assembled an international research team to test that hypothesis. A combination of computational and genetic approaches led to the identification of a single mutation - one change out of a billion letters in our instruction book of life, that seems to be the key to defining the skin, and perhaps eye and hair color differences between European and African peoples. It is striking that such a simple change is responsible for perhaps the most contentious physical feature in human history. The interdisciplinary nature of this work provides a valuable paradigm for understanding complex human diseases such as obesity and heart disease. Finding that a simple mutation can have such a profound effect on humanity provides us an opportunity to demystify and clarify our understanding of race.
A short musical illustration of the power of collaboration will be offered to those who stay to the end of
the discussion.
*This lecture series is funded by Helen and Peter Bing.