Particularly vocal is Troy Duster, a New York University sociologist who served on the committee advising the Human Genome Project on social and ethical issues and who has called genetic-testing proponents pied pipers of genealogical certainty. I knew that if you started to get genetic samples from African Americans, it would be sensitive data, Kittles says. See also Other Works | Publicity Listings | Official Sites View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro Kittles ran into trouble with the government funders who had underwritten the African Burial Ground research as he moved toward profit-making enterprises, and he parted ways with his former associate Michael Blakey in a disagreement over the new project's aims. RESPECTED LUMINARY: Paige has worked with and revealed the roots of the world's leading icons and entities including Oprah Winfrey, John Legend, Chadwick Boseman, Spike Lee, Condoleezza Rice and The King Family. Rick A. Kittles, PhD Section of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine and Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics School of Public Health, University of Illinois, Chicago. 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. Kittles launched African Ancestry in February 2003 with Paige, a Washington, D.C., entrepreneur who, as president, oversees the companys marketing and finances. . "Milestones Leading to the NHGC," National Human Genome Center, www.genomecenter.howard.edu/milestones.htm (March 1, 2005). Shes often a go-to resource for African Diaspora communities including the Embassies of Cameroon and Ghana; The Year of Return 2019 event From Jamestown to Jamestown with the NAACP; Back2Africa Festival in Cape Coast and various African tourism authorities and leaders. Loop is the open research network that increases the discoverability and impact of researchers and their work. Thats when the database work began in earnest. Web www.africanancestry.com. PIONEERING RESEARCHER: Dr. Rick Kittles is Co-founder and Scientific Director of African Ancestry, Inc. Currently, Kittles is an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Epidemiology and . His work on tracing the genetic ancestry of African Americans has brought to focus many issues, new and old, which relate to race, ancestry, identity, and group membership. Though usually associated with the intellectual lineage that runs from Cheikh Anta Diop (192, Cayton, Horace 19031970 Ph.D. dissertation. Terms of Use, Jo S(usenbach) Kittinger (1955-) Biography - Writings, Sidelights - Personal, Addresses, Career, Member, Work in Progress, Rick Kittles - Concocted African Ancestry, Rick Kittles - Directed Prostate Cancer Study, Rick Kittles - Callers Jammed Howard Switchboard, Rick Kittles - Attracted Celebrity Customers. Retrieved February 23, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/kittles-rick. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. Kittles offered his customers a glimpse into their specific African ancestries, pinpointing an actual African ethnic group to which one or two of the customer's ancestors had belonged. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. 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). ." Now it contains more than 25,000 and counting. The whole countryside, he says, is basically without electricity. "Kittles, Rick It is most often used to, Pan-Africanism is an internationalist philosophy that is based on the idea that Africans and people of African descent share a common bond. "There is very strong resistance in the African-American community to participate in government-sponsored research," Kittles pointed out to the Chicago Sun-Times. Rick then became a researcher and funded a project for Howard University researchers, in which they exhume remains of African Americans from an 18th-century graveyard. More than a year and a half earlier, Sampson had swabbed the inside of his cheek with a sterile foam pad, which he mailed off to African Ancestry, a Silver Spring, Marylandbased company that uses genetic testing to trace African Americans genealogical roots. As he began to work toward realizing his ideas, Kittles encountered both excitement and controversy. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click on download. [http://www.physanth.org/positions/race.html AAPA Statement on Biological Aspects of Wikipedia, Shomarka Keita Shomarka Omar Sundiata Yahye (S.O.Y.) "About Us," African Ancestry, Inc., www.africanancestry.com (March 1, 2005). But youre not necessarily related to any of them; its just a common name. Other last names are more rare. Associate Professor, The University of Chicago, Department of Medicine Kittles received his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from George Washington University. Interest in public-health implications would be typical of Kittles's scholarly research. It was seasonably hot85 degrees or soand the streets were muddy. In July 2007 he told Englands Observer Magazine, There is a cultural feeling that DNA evidence is sacrosanct. Many customers made plans to visit African countries after receiving their test results. He also served as Co-Director of Molecular Genetics in the National Human Genome Center at Howard University. But failing that, he says, he is able to specify the present-day country their DNA points to (most of the continents national boundaries are postcolonial phenomena, finalized a century ago or less). 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. [1] On je afroamerikog porijekla, a poznat je 1990-ih po svom pionirskom radu u praenju porijekla Afroamerikanaca putem DNK testiranja . Moreover, a third of paternal-lineage tests Investors sensed something big in the making, and Washington Business Forward estimated that if just one-tenth of one percent of the 33 million Americans of African descent took Kittles's ancestry test each year, his potential annual gross would be in the $10 million range. To analyze a clients data, Kittles looks for genetic markers, short sequences of DNA whose physical locations are known and whose variations differ from one population to another. Nobody mentions that. "I used to always wonder in school why everybody looks different," Kittles told Alice Thomas of the Columbus Dispatch. Dr. Rick Kittles Joins MSM as Senior Vice President for Research JULY 27, 2022 - Noted researcher and health disparities expert comes to MSM from Ci. After a while they withdrew to consult. Beginning in 1998, as he was completing his Ph.D. at George Washington University, Kittles was hired as an assistant professor of microbiology at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and also named director of the African American Hereditary Prostate Cancer (AAHPC) Study Network at the university's National Human Genome Center. He grew up in Central Islip, New York. When you look at our family history, what gets reinforced is that we were enslaved, he says. //]]>. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Contemporary Black Biography. Counting backward 350 years, or about 14 generations, to the height of the African slave trade, any one person could have as many as 16,384 ancestors. Another research enterprise in which Kittles became involved at the beginning of his career was the African Burial Ground Project in New York City, where Howard researchers led by anthropologist Michael Blakey exhumed the remains of 408 African Americans from an eighteenth-century graveyard. 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. In the early 1990s he began his career as a teacher in several New York and Washington, D.C. area high schools. Afrocentricity redirects here. DNA MATCHMAKER: A leading geneticist, Dr. Kittles oversees AfricanAncestry.coms DNA matching and results function. Dr. Kittles received a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from George Washington University in 1998. Rick Antonius Kittles (born in Sylvania, Georgia, United States) is an American biologist specializing in human genetics. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. 2021 African Ancestry, Inc. All rights reserved. "This finding emphasizes the importance of ancestry in studying genetics," said study author Rick Kittles, Associate Professor in Medicine. DeAnna Taylor May 28, 2019. Geneticist Rick Kittles, a professor at Ohio State University, became one of the hottest young scientific researchers in the country in the early 2000s. Sociologist Historical records suggest that between 1640 and 1795 as many as 15,000 slaves were laid to rest in the New York African Burial Ground; after the cemetery closed, it was paved over as the burgeoning city expanded. Under Kittles leadership, African Ancestry has grown into the leading provider of at-home genetic ancestry tests for people of African descent across the world. ENTREPRENEURIAL DNA: From a lineage of entrepreneurs, Paige launched her first business at age 8, with a magazine purposed to raise money for an amusement park visit. Some of the research followed traditional anthropological models: caskets were examined in search of links to traditional African practices, and the scientists learned what they could from dry bones about how these enslaved African Americans had spent their working life. As he was completing his doctoral degree at George Washington University in 1998, Kittles was hired as an assistant professor of microbiology at Washington's Howard University and was named director of the African American Hereditary Prostate Cancer (AAHPC) Study Network at the university's National Human Genome Center. Prior to forming AfricanAncestry.com, Paige was the founder and president of GPG Strategic Marketing Resources. The Massachusetts-born preacher, who had grown up in Boston and spent the bulk of his career behind the pulpit of Fernwood United Methodist Church on Chicagos South Side, would be coming home to a place he had never been. [13], Kittles has performed a large amount of research, including publishing over 160 peer-reviewed articles, over his career with much of this work being devoted to issues such as genetic ancestry and health disparities among African Americans and other minority groups. More distinctive lineages are restricted to particular regions and groups. 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. However, the date of retrieval is often important. As African-Americans, our connection and contact with our family members vary from tight nuclear families to large, well-kept branches and . Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. Its important to have a historical place of origin, he says, and Africa is a huge continentmuch larger than the U.S. "I would say, 'Africa'" when other students asked him about his own roots, Kittles was quoted as saying in the Seattle Times. Ebony selected the nation's top 100 African-American "power players . In 1997 he joined a research team examining remains from a colonial-era black cemetery that once occupied six acres of lower Manhattan. It aired in February 2006, and included research into the ancestral lineages of nine prominent African Americans: Gates, Whoopi Wikipedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. When word of his efforts leaked out, Howard found its switchboard jammed with calls from reporters and from ordinary African Americans who wanted to know how they could sign up to be tested. Kittles was recently named in Ebony magazine's "The Ebony Power 100.". MEDIA RESOURCE: Paige has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including The Breakfast Club, Hot 97-FM, Time Magazine, USA Today, 60 Minutes, NewsOne Now with Roland Martin, HuffPost Live with Marc Lamont Hill, The Joe Madison Show, Sister Circle Live, Essence Magazine, The New York Times, The Tom Joyner Morning Show, FOX Business News, Reuters, New York Times, Canal Media Company, Black Enterprise, Ebony, NPR, Metro Source Urban Radio, American Urban Radio Networks, The Grio.com and TheRoot.com among many others. Loop enables you to stay up-to-date with the latest discoveries and news, connect with researchers and form new collaborations. For another, hes used to scrutiny. Kittles also co-directed the molecular genetics unit of Howard University's National Human Genome Center. [1] 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. "I used to always wonder in school why everybody looks different," Kittles told Alice Thomas of the Columbus Dispatch. Rick Kittles, PhD Director, Division of Population Genetics, Center for Applied Genetics and Genomic Medicine Professor, Cancer Biology, GIDP Professor, Public Health Professor, Surgery rkittles@email.arizona.edu (520) 626-8003 Room Number: 4948 UA Profile Academic / Professional Bio: Kittles's tests also confirmed what researchers had long suspected; around 30 percent of African Americans had European ancestors, primarily due to the rape of slave women by white slaveholders. Objective. To overcome that wall is more empowering than I can describe., Kittless criticsand there are manyworry that hes promising too much too fast. Dr. He is also Associate Director of health equities in the Comprehensive Cancer Center. Boston was selected because its African-American population was relatively self-contained; many black Boston families could trace their roots to the American Revolution or even earlier. to improve the cultural, emotional, physical, spiritual and economic wellbeing of people across the African Diaspora. Rick Antonius Kittles (born in Sylvania, Georgia, United States) is an American biologist specializing in human genetics. His parentsDNA, however, revealed links to the Hausa people of northern Nigeria, the Ibo of eastern Nigeria, and the Mandinka of Senegal. 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 is a four-time Pro Bowler and was a First-team All-Pro in 2019. A black geneticist, Dr. Rick Kittles, contacted me and told me about this exciting new scientific development. Genetics can help us have a more nuanced understanding of how we use that word, not just in the biologial sciences, but in the social sciences and humanities, he says. When he was hired by Ohio State in 2004, the Columbus Dispatch reported that he would bring to the university more than $1 million in research grants in addition to his teaching expertise. You hit a wall in the antebellum South. Young African Americans grow up with the debilitating idea that their history begins with slavery. Study guides. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. Read all about Rick Kittles with TV Guide's exclusive biography including their list of awards, celeb facts and more at TV Guide. 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. Dr. Kittles research interests explore DNA, family history, and disease. James Jacobs, who knew of a Louisiana ancestor called Jacko Congo, told the Houston Chronicle that "the feeling is hard to describe, like having a long-lost parent and you found them." 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. Currently, he is a professor and founding director of the Division of . He has previously held positions at Howard University (19982004), Ohio State University (20042006), the University of Chicago (20062010), the University of Illinois Chicago (20102014), the University of Arizona (20142017), and the City of Hope National Medical Center (20172022). Rick A. Kittles Genetic ancestry, skin color and social attainment: The four cities study Dede K. Teteh, Lenna Dawkins-Moultin, Stanley Hooker, Wenndy Hernandez, Carolina Bonilla, Dorothy Galloway, Victor LaGroon, Eunice Rebecca Santos, Mark Shriver, Charmaine D. M. Royal x Published: August 19, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237041 But a kind of false precision is rampant right now. Cautioning consumers against any headlong plunge into genetic ancestry testing, an article in the October 19 Sciencecoauthored by 14 anthropologists, sociologists (including Duster), bioethicists, and legal scholarssummed up the skepticscase. For 85 percent of African Ancestrys clients, Kittles says, he finds an identical match to an ethnic group in his database, and he tells clients the present-day country or countries where that group resides. Johnson concurs, adding that DNA reveals the limitations of the very idea of race. As he was completing his doctoral degree at George Washington University in 1998, Kittles was hired as an assistant professor of microbiology at Washington's Howard University and was named director of the African American Hereditary Prostate Cancer (AAHPC) Study Network at the university's National Human Genome Center. He mounted his own research trips to the continent too, concentrating on its western territory, from which so many millions of African slaves had been captured and shipped to America. From approximately 1995 until 1999, as a researcher with the New York African Burial Ground Project (NYABGP), a federally funded project in New York City, in which Howard University researchers, led by anthropologist Michael Blakey, exhumed the remains of 408 African Americans from an 18th-century graveyard;[7] Kittles gathered DNA samples from the remains and compared them with samples from a DNA database to determine from where in Africa the individuals buried in the graveyard had come. His collection of 10,000 samples "to me sounds pretty good," University of Chicago professor Chung-I Wu told the Chicago Tribune (as quoted by the Knight Ridder Tribune News Service). Dr. Rick Kittles is a geneticist and director of the division of health equities at City of Hope, a private hospital, graduate medical school and research center in Duarte, California. [1] Ia adalah keturunan Afrika-Amerika , dan terkenal pada tahun 1990-an karena karya rintisannya dalam melacak keturunan Afrika-Amerika melalui tes DNA . In addition, he discovered, through of a DNA analysis, he descends mainly of people of Dakar, Senegal, and Nigeria's Hausa people. *Kittles, Ricky Antonius (1998). RICK KITTLES, PH.D. Al Sampsons DNA led him to Sierra Leone. Anthropologists pored over the caskets, finding signs of ancient African rituals in the toys and tools buried with the dead, the coins placed in their hands. Geneticist Rick Kittles, a professor at Ohio State University, became one of the hottest young scientific researchers in the country in the early 2000s. The path that led to the founding of African Ancestry was complicated and not without controversy, but Kittles found that his research often fed into the deep interest in African-American genealogy that had been awakened by the publication of Alex Haley's book Roots in the 1970s.