rick kittles biography

As a pilot project, they began to gather genetic material from Boston-area school children. Kittles received a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from George Washington University. So when Rick Kittles, a young and ambitious geneticist at Howard University, proposed using DNA testing to pinpoint the exact region or tribe of their forebears, hundreds of blacks contacted his . //]]>. See also Other Works | Publicity Listings | Official Sites View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro Says Sampson: That resonated., At first sight, Lunsars cinderblock shacks and dirt roads reminded Sampson of the rural Southern towns hed seen as a civil-rights organizer during the 1960sthe kind of place where townspeople gather around a single television in the main store. DNA MATCHMAKER: A leading geneticist, Dr. Kittles oversees AfricanAncestry.coms DNA matching and results function. Keita M.D., D.Phil., (May 25, 1954) ne Jon Derryll Walker, is an African American biological anthropologist. Rick Antonius Kittles (lahir di Sylvania , Georgia , Amerika Serikat ) adalah seorang ahli biologi Amerika yang berspesialisasi dalam genetika manusia dan Wakil Presiden Senior untuk Riset di Morehouse School of Medicine . Contemporary Black biography. Sampson isnt alone. 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. But youre not necessarily related to any of them; its just a common name. Other last names are more rare. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. Between 1991 and 2003, the New York Times covered the story more than 100 times. He is also Associate Director of Health Equities of COH Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is also Associate Director of health equities in the Comprehensive Cancer Center. Thats when the database work began in earnest. Interest in public-health implications would be typical of Kittles's scholarly research. ", Brief BiographiesBiographies: Dan Jacobson Biography - Dan Jacobson comments: to Barbara Knutson (19592005) Biography - Personal, Copyright 2023 Web Solutions LLC. Beginning in 2004, he served as an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology & Medical Genetics at the Tzagournis Medical Research Facility of Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. However, the date of retrieval is often important. So those whose results dont reveal the American Indian, or Zulu, or Mende, or Mandinka lineage that oral histories led them to expect may simply have those ancestors on a still-shrouded branch of the family tree. For African Americans, its hard to make that African connection, says Reverend Sampson. Rick Kittles, PhD, received a BS in biology from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1989 and a PhD in biological sciences from George Washington University in 1998. Dr. Kittles research interests explore DNA, family history, and disease. "I was always the only black kid in the class. Like many African Americans, we knew nothing about where in Africa our ancestors were from, he says. [http://medicine.uchicago.edu/faculty_profile/faculty_profile.asp?empl_id=9960]. When he was young he hoped to become a rap musician, but he was curious from the start about human origins and differences. Men inherit their mothersmitochondrial DNA, but only women can pass it on; thus, both genders can trace their maternal roots using mitochondrial DNA. Kittles had a few fierce critics within the African-American community as well; charging African Americans a fee to learn about their African origins was "like charging Holocaust victims a fee to confirm their relatives were in fact gassed," University of Maryland anthropologist Fatima Jackson told the on-line magazine Salon. African Ancestrys African DNA database remains the largest and most comprehensive ever collected, making its lineage matching the most reliable in the marketplace. There was so much variation, and I realized we could tell something about maternal ancestry by looking at this data, he says. We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. 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. His parentsDNA, however, revealed links to the Hausa people of northern Nigeria, the Ibo of eastern Nigeria, and the Mandinka of Senegal. Well known for his research in this field, Kittles has been featured in the PBS series African American Lives, in two BBC Two films, and on 60 . Construction workers accidentally unearthed the graveyard in September 1991 while bulldozing the foundation for a federal office tower, and by the following summer, archaeologists dug up more than 400 graves. Geneticist Rick Kittles, a professor at Ohio State University, became one of the hottest young scientific researchers in the country in the early 2000s. Then she learned other companies traced it elsewhere, to Senegal and Ivory Coast. Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 31, 1994, p. C1. When they emerged, they bestowed the name Pa Sorie Kamara. Pa indicates an elder; Kamara associates Sampson with a particular house. Reporters called; ordinary people wrote to ask about being tested. SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: Dr. Kittles work at African Ancestry has ignited global interest and dialogue, as well as unprecedented focus on African ancestry tracing in U.S. and abroad. To many of them, what Kittles offers isnt merely scientific information, its a missing fragment of identity. 2532) . Kittles, Ricky Antonius (1998). Morocco? Al Sampsons DNA led him to Sierra Leone. In part because its unearthing sparked controversy among African Americans, and because the find was archaeologically significant, the burial ground got plenty of press. *Kittles, Ricky Antonius (1998). Though usually associated with the intellectual lineage that runs from Cheikh Anta Diop (192, Cayton, Horace 19031970 [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. 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 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. In 2003, Dr. Kittles and along with Co-founder Dr. Gina Paige pioneered a new marketplace for Black people looking to know where theyre from in Africa. Retrieved February 23, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/kittles-rick. CO-FOUNDER & SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR, AFRICAN ANCESTRY, INC. INDUSTRY PIONEER, LEADING GENETICIST, ENTREPRENEUR, SPEAKE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: SENEGAL, NIGERIA TRIBES: MANDINKA AND HAUSA PIONEERING RESEARCHER: Dr. Rick Kittles is Co-founder and Scientific Director of African Ancestry, Inc. Since that first journey to Lunsar, he has made several trips back, as do many who trace their roots to Africa, and hes added his Temne name to his business card, just above the line that reads, Ordained by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sampsons congregation is starting an adoption program for Lunsars orphansIm always concerned about orphanages, he says, not least because I could have grown up in oneand this year he plans to bring over a few generators to power the villages schools. Kittles also co-directed the molecular genetics unit of Howard University's National Human Genome Center. Ricky Kittles is 56 years old today because Ricky's birthday is on 03/16/1966. Some surnames, like Smith or Jackson or Brown, are common. 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. He was born in Orangeburg, SC to Johnnie Lee Walker, father and Jessie Dorman Walker, mother. His work has been featured on BBC, PBS, CNN, CBS 60 Minutes, Ebony, NPR and USA TODAY, as well as hundreds of local and trade media across the world. Its important to have a historical place of origin, he says, and Africa is a huge continentmuch larger than the U.S. Michelle, 1957-, Kittles, Rick, Lafontant-MANkarious, Jewel, 1922-1997, Lewis, . 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. Kittles, who has since started a company selling . Scoops about Morehouse College . This page was last edited on 8 February 2023, at 17:10. Recognize how race is still used in medicine, and "pros" and "cons" to using race as a social identifier. Its like your last name, he says. It aired in February 2006, and included research into the ancestral lineages of nine prominent African Americans: Gates, Whoopi Wikipedia. Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Biography submission guide. Washington, D.C.: George Washington University. If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Hes planning a trip there this year. Dr. Kittles received a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from George Washington University in 1998. George Krieger Kittle (born October 9, 1993) is an American football tight end for the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL). Dr. Rick Kittles,former Director of the Institute of Human Genetics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, investigates the genetics of complex diseases that disproportionately impact people of color. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. She went on to start Pik-A-Pak Care Packages as a Stanford University graduate, helping families stay connected with their children while away at school. He started with scientific literature, compiling African DNA sequences that had already been decoded and digitized. In July 2007 he told Englands Observer Magazine, There is a cultural feeling that DNA evidence is sacrosanct. African descent having helped more than 1,000,000 people re-connect with the roots of their family tree. The authors examined ancestry informative markers (AIMs) to estimate the amount of population admixture and control for this heterogeneity for stage and . . He is currently Scientific Director 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 March 2003 . ." 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. On December 15, 2010, the Center for Genetic Medicine and Science in Society, the University's office for science outreach and public engagement, hosted th. Dr. Kittles' research has focused on understanding the complex issues. The 25,000 samples hes collected represent 389 ethnic groups from more than 30 countries, most in west and central Africa, where the slave trade was concentrated. Your result is not based on a single data point, says Paige, noting that African Ancestry has performed some 12,000 tests to date, a figure she says translates into genealogical information for more than 50,000 people. With the industrys largest and most comprehensive database of over 30,000 indigenous African DNA samples, He served in these positions until 2004. Seattle Times, May 30, 2000, p. A1; April 25, 2003, p. A7. Kittless analysis cant always narrow clientsgenetic past to a particular tribe. Ph.D. dissertation. 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. Dr. That bothered me, not knowing more about where in Africa.". To overcome that wall is more empowering than I can describe., Kittless criticsand there are manyworry that hes promising too much too fast. Rick Antonius Kittles (born in Sylvania, Georgia, United States) is an American biologist specializing in human genetics. Kittles, who joined Chicagos faculty in 2006, hardly imagined any scene like Sampsons Lunsar homecoming when he began constructing the DNA database that would become the foundation of African Ancestry. Following public outcry over the federal governments haphazard excavationand some dismay that the graves had been disturbed at allthe remains were turned over to Howard researchers for more systematic examination. A single mitochondrial DNA or Y-chromosome test from African Ancestry costs $350; other companies charge between $200 and $900 for genetic screenings. In February 2008 he appeared in part 4 of African American Lives 2. Geneticist Rick Kittles, a professor at Ohio State University, became one of the hottest young scientific researchers in the country in the early 2000s. (February 23, 2023). One siblings results hold true for the others, and parents who swab their cheeks save their children the trouble. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. "It has nothing to do with race, it has more to do with ancestry," explained Rick Kittles, the director of the Center for Population Genetics at the University of Arizona and co-founder of . "Other times I would make stuff up and say, 'I'm a Mandingo.' Often, those matches hold surprises. Ph.D. dissertation. Van Velsen | 1 Stefanie Van Velsen Feb 21, 2019. Kittles took on the role of scientific director. 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). Its recorded in our genome.. African Ancestry is committed to providing a unique service to the black community by working daily Many customers made plans to visit African countries after receiving their test results. 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." When Kittles tested his own DNA he's the co-founder and scientific director of African Ancestry, a genealogy and DNA testing website for people of African descent he learned he was 80 percent. Customers, who were often able to put Kittles's results together with bits of family oral history to fill in blanks in their family trees, had strong emotional responses to what they learned from African Ancestry's tests. Scientific observers questioned whether Kittles could generate useful results in view of the fact that DNA testing could illuminate only a small sliver of a person's ancestry, and questions were raised about the size of the African DNA database on which he planned to rely. Call a family reunion and have everybody put in $10., Kittles takes the criticism seriously, but in stride. Rick Antonius Kittles is an American biologist specializing in human genetics and a Senior Vice President for Research at the Morehouse School of Medicine. Volume 51 : profiles from the international Black community Item Preview remove-circle Share or Embed This Item. The company was sort of an afterthought, he says. "Flesh and Blood and DNA," Salon, http://archive.salon.com/health/feature/2000/05/12/roots/print.html (March 1, 2005). and its Licensors Want this question answered? 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). He then helped establish the National Human Genome Center at Howard University. Dr. Then he adds, I know that if I wasnt who I was in that little village of Lunsar, they wouldnt have given me no name.. Dr. Kittles is an international leader on race and genetics, health disparities, and cancer genetics. He took on a partner, Washington businesswoman Gina Paige, to handle the financial side of African Ancestry, taking the title of Scientific Director for himself. For his original DNA research and analysis restoring the African ethnic and national identities of descendants of enslaved Africans living in the Diaspora, Dr. Kittles deserves honors and recognition. Is understanding your roots as important as a pair of sneakers? Sampson, who established genetics as a ministry within his church and encourages worshippers to test their DNA, advises splitting the cost among several family members. I knew that if you started to get genetic samples from African Americans, it would be sensitive data, Kittles says. Chicago geneticist Rick Kittles stirs controversy and hope with a DNA database designed to help African Americans unearth their roots. I mean, were talking about a very small part of your DNA, he says, less than 0.01 percent. The thinnest shred of genetic material0.1 percentaccounts for the entire spectrum of human variation; the other 99.9 percent of the genomes 3 billion nucleotides are identical from person to person. Rick Antonius Kittles ( born in Sylvania, Georgia, United States) is an American biologist specializing in human genetics. A leader in the field of genetic ancestry tracing, AfricanAncestry.com followed Davidson's roots to Africa. 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. Until this past November, when Gates introduced his own company, AfricanDNA, Kittless was the only genetic-testing lab set up specifically to find AmericansAfrican roots, and he became a focal point for scholarsdiscomfort not only with the technologys accuracy, but also its implications. As a second-year graduate student in biology at George Washington University, he began collecting data on mitochondrial DNA, the maternally inherited part of the genome, which passes unchanged from generation to generation. Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. I saw it as a way of trying to put water on our flame, Sampson says. Journal of Black Studies 1995 26: 1, 36-61 Download Citation. He was featured in the BBC Two films "Motherland: A Genetic Journey" and "Motherland Moving On" (released in 2003 and 2004, respectively), as well as in part 4 of the 2006 PBS series "African American Lives" (hosted by Henry Louis Gates). 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. Contemporary Black Biography. He served in these positions until 2004. His published papers, most of them (as is typical in the hard sciences) done in collaboration with other investigators, bore lengthy titles like "High Incidence of Microsatellite Instability in Colorectal Cancer from African Americans." Through DNA testing, he discovered he's a descendant of the Mende people of Sierra Leone. In 2003 the remains were reinterred, and this past October a monument was dedicated at the site. In 1990 he began his career as a teacher in several New York and Washington, D.C. area high schools. Afrocentrism has a long and often misunderstood history. [1] 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. Moreover, a third of paternal-lineage tests Share to Facebook. Aug 2, 2022. msm.edu . [CDATA[ accuracy and confidence. If you need immediate assistance, call 877-SSRNHelp (877 777 6435) in the United States, or +1 212 448 2500 outside of the United States, 8:30AM to 6:00PM U.S. Eastern, Monday - Friday. He was a nationally recognized investigator whose specialties encompassed such vital topics as prostate cancer and the role of genetics in disease. Rick Antonius Kittles (syntynyt Sylvaniassa , Georgiassa , Yhdysvalloissa ) on yhdysvaltalainen biologi, joka on erikoistunut ihmisen genetiikkaan ja tutkimuksesta vastaava johtaja Morehouse School of Medicine -koulussa . He holds a B.S. Controversy continued to dog himan anonymous letter was submitted to Ohio State's search committee, accusing him of blurring scientific and for-profit workbut it was his strong record as a prostate cancer researcher, not his work with African Ancestry, that interested his new employer. A lot of folk are really into family reunions, but it stops at grandmamma or great-grandmamma. 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. Houston Chronicle, February 24, 2005, p. Star-1. Eleven million people watched as celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Quincy Jones, and Chris Tucker submitted their DNA for the companys analysis. Rick Antonius Kittles (born in Sylvania, Georgia, United States ) is an American biologist specializing in human genetics. Previous to Ricky's current city of Pasadena, CA, Ricky Kittles lived in Tucson AZ. 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. In the age of DNA screening, centuries-old rumors about plantation owners siring children with their female slaves have become, he says, verifiable fact. For African Americans, DNAs promise is particularly seductive. 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. He also became codirector of the molecular-genetics unit at the universitys National Human Genome Center. 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. Tory Kittles Biography. The way Kittles tells it, requests from African Americans swelled to a roar. (Photo: Bob Demers/UANews) Ever since he can remember, Rick Kittles always wanted to know where he came from. 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. Goal for these activities: Recognize why using race in biomedical studies can be problematic. Beginning in 2004, he served as an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology & Medical Genetics at the Tzagournis Medical Research Facility of Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. 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. Paige has served as speaker, presenter and/or partner to McDonalds, Capital One, The Walt Disney Company, Booz Allen Hamilton, Wells Fargo, The Wall Street Health Forum, New York Times Travel Show, United Healthcare and dozens of community organizations and faith-based entities. 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. PIONEERING RESEARCHER: Dr. Rick Kittles is Co-founder and Scientific Director of African Ancestry, Inc. 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. Feb 25 2023. As one of the only Black geneticists, Dr. Rick Kittles wanted to create a way for Black Americans to trace their roots back to Africa. Share to Twitter. 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). When you look at our family history, what gets reinforced is that we were enslaved, he says. 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. degree in biology from the Rochester Institute of Technology (1989), an M.S. Some buildings had thatched roofs, and many local businesses were simply candlelit kiosks. He matches them to corresponding markers from his database. [http://saxakali.com/Saxakali Wikipedia, Race (classification of human beings) The term race or racial group usually refers to the concept of categorizing humans into populations or groups on the basis of various sets of characteristics. He grew up in Central Islip, New York. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. Sometimes Ricky goes by various nicknames including Ricky A Kittles, Ricahrd Kittles, Richard Kittles, Richard A Kittles and Anthony Kittles. Sampson met with Lunsars 40 elders, all but one of them men, and all Muslim, save one Christian. Born 1976(?) Thats mainly because of the behavior of slaveholders during slavery, Kittles says. I wanted to make sure the people involved would be attuned to those issues. One of the first decisions he made was to destroy clientsgenetic material after it was analyzed. Kittles faced a public-relations problem of long standing in his new post, for the AAHPC Study Network was a government-funded project. [1] On je afroamerikog porijekla, a poznat je 1990-ih po svom pionirskom radu u praenju porijekla Afroamerikanaca putem DNK testiranja . From approximately 1997 until 1999, as a researcher with the New York African Burial Ground Project (NYABGP), a federally funded project in New York City, win which Howard University researchers, led by anthropologist Michael Blakey, exhumed the remains of 408 African Americans from an 18th-century graveyard; 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. "The Finnish Population Bottlenecks: Exploiting the Evolutionary History of Genes for Population and Genetic Disease Studies." 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.