Page 449 - Melanesia

grant from the Wenner-Gren samples. While the islands fit many many genetic and environmental fac-
people’s notion of a tropical paradise, tors, Kenny expected an inconclusive
A Foundation for Anthropological result that would require much further
Research gave Myles, who at that time they lack amenities Westerners take for study. Instead, she immediately saw a
single strong signal on chromosome 9,
was doing a stint as a postdoctoral granted. For instance, simply finding a which accounted for 50 percent of the
variance in the Solomon Islanders’ hair
researcher at Cornell University, his level spot for the scale to weigh study color.

chance to study the genetics of the participants was a challenge. T he team went on to identify the
gene responsible, TYRP1, which
Solomon Islanders’ hair color. Myles T hen in 2010 Bustamante joined encodes tyrosinase-related protein 1,
worked with Bustamante, who was also Stanford’s faculty and, with fund- an enzyme previously recognized as
at Cornell, to design the study. Then influencing pigmentation in mice and
humans. Further research revealed that
back in the islands, Myles and Timpson ing from the Department of Genetics, the particular variant responsible for
blond hair in the Solomon Islands is
went village to village explaining what the team looked for genes underlying absent in the genomes of Europeans.
“So the human characteristic of blond
they wanted to do and asking for per- this striking phenotype. Soon after, hair arose independently in equatorial
Oceania. That’s quite unexpected and
mission to gather data, Myles speaking Kenny joined the lab and started the fascinating,” Kenny said.

in Solomon Islands pidgin, the most analysis, selecting 43 blond- and 42

widely understood language. When the dark-haired Solomon Islanders from

local chief gave the OK, the researchers the opposite 10 percent extremes of

recruited participants and assessed hair the hair pigmentation range. She used

and skin color using a light reflectance these in a genome-wide association

meter, took blood pressure readings study, a method to reveal differences

and measured heights and weights. in the frequency of genetic variants

They asked the villagers to spit into between two groups, that usually re-

small tubes to provide saliva to be used quires thousands of samples. Because

for DNA extraction. In the span of a the vast majority of human physical

month they collected more than 1,000 characteristics analyzed to date have