A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey: The Life and Work of L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza
http://www.100md.com
《新英格兰医药杂志》
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza is one of the most influential population geneticists of our time. Now in his 80s, he is a principal investigator and professor emeritus in the Department of Genetics at Stanford University School of Medicine. I first encountered Cavalli-Sforza's name in 1992, when my Ph.D. thesis adviser, Dr. Iury Rychkov, well known in the field of anthropogenetics, showed me an issue of the journal Gene Geography, published by the University of Pavia, in Italy. The University of Pavia is Cavalli-Sforza's alma mater, where he trained as a physician and conducted his first experiments in measuring the virulence of anthrax and pneumonia-causing bacteria.
After spending some time in clinical practice at the end of World War II, Cavalli-Sforza decided to continue in basic research and turned to bacterial genetics. This was the beginning of his extraordinary scientific journey, as reflected in A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey, written by Linda Stone, an anthropologist, and Paul F. Lurquin, a geneticist. The book is an intelligent and serious scientific biography whose subject, according to Stone and Lurquin, "conveys a spirit of adventure coupled with a search for knowledge," which is the same reason, they say, that Cavalli-Sforza likes the tale of Ulysses's (Odysseus's) last adventure in Dante's Divine Comedy — and thus the word "odyssey" in the title of the book.
Cavalli-Sforza's early research in bacterial genetics had important implications for the understanding of bacterial conjugation and sexual reproduction. Unfortunately, this is not widely known, and like most geneticists, I was not aware of this work. The authors describe well this research period, which became a very important platform for future endeavors.
Cavalli-Sforza spent a few years in Cambridge, England, with Sir Ronald Fisher, a brilliant British statistician, and collaborated with Joshua Lederberg, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958. After Cambridge, Cavalli-Sforza returned to Italy and taught at the University of Parma, where he gradually developed a strong interest in human genetics, taking advantage of the parish registers of the Parma Valley. This shift from bacteria to humans was the turning point of his scientific career; his contributions to human population genetics have brought him international recognition.
Cavalli-Sforza studied the factors that make the frequencies of the human blood groups ABO, MN, and Rhesus so different from one population to another (e.g., from the Alaskan Eskimos to the Australian aborigines). He was among the first to suggest that studying many human populations would help us trace the origin of modern humans and learn how humans have populated the earth. Cavalli-Sforza's work on the Y chromosome supports the "out of Africa" theory of modern human origins. According to this theory, a small population of "Adam" and a population of "Eve" originated in East Africa about 100,000 years ago and then spread out of Africa to the rest of the world.
(Figure)
L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza in Pygmy Territory in the Central African Republic in the Late 1960s.
Courtesy of Linda Stone and Paul F. Lurquin/Columbia University Press.
Stone and Lurquin were struck by "the way in which Cavalli-Sforza's work intersects science with society, a venture attempted by very few." His theories of prehistoric migrations of humans and the coevolution of genes, languages, and culture are exciting. Although by themselves cultural evolution and transmission are purely theoretical and controversial, they do reflect the breadth of Cavalli-Sforza's research and its far-reaching implications. Cavalli-Sforza views cultural development as something similar to human biologic evolution; like genes, cultural traits are transmitted from generation to generation and migrate with people when they move from place to place.
A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey is a wonderful journey through the life to date of a giant who is nearly glued to science. Detailed descriptions of genetic methods and data are repeated in some chapters. One can take a detour around these paragraphs while not losing the excitement of the journey.
Nyamkhishig Sambuughin, Ph.D.
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD 20892
sambuugn@ninds.nih.gov(By Linda Stone and Paul F)
After spending some time in clinical practice at the end of World War II, Cavalli-Sforza decided to continue in basic research and turned to bacterial genetics. This was the beginning of his extraordinary scientific journey, as reflected in A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey, written by Linda Stone, an anthropologist, and Paul F. Lurquin, a geneticist. The book is an intelligent and serious scientific biography whose subject, according to Stone and Lurquin, "conveys a spirit of adventure coupled with a search for knowledge," which is the same reason, they say, that Cavalli-Sforza likes the tale of Ulysses's (Odysseus's) last adventure in Dante's Divine Comedy — and thus the word "odyssey" in the title of the book.
Cavalli-Sforza's early research in bacterial genetics had important implications for the understanding of bacterial conjugation and sexual reproduction. Unfortunately, this is not widely known, and like most geneticists, I was not aware of this work. The authors describe well this research period, which became a very important platform for future endeavors.
Cavalli-Sforza spent a few years in Cambridge, England, with Sir Ronald Fisher, a brilliant British statistician, and collaborated with Joshua Lederberg, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958. After Cambridge, Cavalli-Sforza returned to Italy and taught at the University of Parma, where he gradually developed a strong interest in human genetics, taking advantage of the parish registers of the Parma Valley. This shift from bacteria to humans was the turning point of his scientific career; his contributions to human population genetics have brought him international recognition.
Cavalli-Sforza studied the factors that make the frequencies of the human blood groups ABO, MN, and Rhesus so different from one population to another (e.g., from the Alaskan Eskimos to the Australian aborigines). He was among the first to suggest that studying many human populations would help us trace the origin of modern humans and learn how humans have populated the earth. Cavalli-Sforza's work on the Y chromosome supports the "out of Africa" theory of modern human origins. According to this theory, a small population of "Adam" and a population of "Eve" originated in East Africa about 100,000 years ago and then spread out of Africa to the rest of the world.
(Figure)
L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza in Pygmy Territory in the Central African Republic in the Late 1960s.
Courtesy of Linda Stone and Paul F. Lurquin/Columbia University Press.
Stone and Lurquin were struck by "the way in which Cavalli-Sforza's work intersects science with society, a venture attempted by very few." His theories of prehistoric migrations of humans and the coevolution of genes, languages, and culture are exciting. Although by themselves cultural evolution and transmission are purely theoretical and controversial, they do reflect the breadth of Cavalli-Sforza's research and its far-reaching implications. Cavalli-Sforza views cultural development as something similar to human biologic evolution; like genes, cultural traits are transmitted from generation to generation and migrate with people when they move from place to place.
A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey is a wonderful journey through the life to date of a giant who is nearly glued to science. Detailed descriptions of genetic methods and data are repeated in some chapters. One can take a detour around these paragraphs while not losing the excitement of the journey.
Nyamkhishig Sambuughin, Ph.D.
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD 20892
sambuugn@ninds.nih.gov(By Linda Stone and Paul F)