Genome of Man Who Died in 1827 Has Been Reverse-Engineered Without Any Remains (ScienceAlert)

[eppur_se_muova]

DAVID NIELD
17 JAN 2018

Hans Jonatan was born in the Caribbean in 1784, migrated to Iceland in 1802, and died in 1827 – and scientists have just managed to reconstruct part of his genome from 182 of his descendants, even though Hans' remains have long since been lost.

This remarkable feat of reverse genetic engineering – the first time someone's genotype has been reconstructed using only descendants rather than their physical remains – reveals that Hans' mother was originally from somewhere in the Benin, Nigeria, and Cameroon region.

With Iceland having a mostly self-contained population until fairly recently, Hans' ancestry and history would have been very different from that of his neighbours. The study demonstrates that with enough genealogical and genotype data available, reconstructing a historical genome sequence like this is possible.

"To our knowledge, this study demonstrates the first use of genotype data from contemporary individuals, along with information about their genealogical relationships, to reconstruct a sizeable portion of the genome from a single ancestor born more than 200 years ago," says the international team of researchers in their paper.

Quite a bit of detailed research was required first – though these efforts were helped by Hans being the first man with African heritage to set foot in Iceland, and by the country having such a comprehensive genome database for its residents.
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more: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-recreate-genome-of-famous-18th-century-icelander-hans-jonatan?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1




So much for the idea that your genome is private.