<![CDATA[THE TURKANA HEALTH AND GENOMICS PROJECT

<![CDATA[THE TURKANA HEALTH AND GENOMICS PROJECT - News]]>Fri, 03 May 2024 18:44:29 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[New preprint!]]>Fri, 20 Jan 2023 21:54:02 GMThttp://turkanahgp.com/news/new-preprintCheck out our new preprint about signatures of selection in the Turkana. We attempt to link ecology, genomics, and phenotypic variation involved in adaptation to water stress and pastoralism. This one was a huge Turkana Health and Genomics Project team effort, congrats to all involved!]]><![CDATA[Community engagement event at Mpala!]]>Fri, 20 Jan 2023 21:39:26 GMThttp://turkanahgp.com/news/community-engagement-event-at-mpalaIn October of 2022, we hosted a community engagement event at Mpala Research Centre. This event brought together the Turkana Health and Genomics Project (THGP) team, study participants, Turkana leaders, and local scientists to participate in result sharing, discussions about upcoming work, and to communicate any other ideas or issues. More specifically, the event included youth leaders, women leaders, elder and religious leaders, clinical and administrative officers, village elders and administrators, and chiefs. In total, 15 Turkana stakeholders participated in the workshop, including 4 women and 11 men. The event included two days of workshop sessions that were run in and supported by written materials in English, Kiswahili, and Turkana. This event was extremely important, informative, and fun! Given its success, we hope to use this new model for future engagement sessions, in addition to the local meetings we perform on site with each study community.

]]><![CDATA[Benjamin Muhoya - new graduate student!]]>Mon, 11 Apr 2022 16:56:24 GMThttp://turkanahgp.com/news/benjamin-muhoya-new-graduate-studentBenjamin Muhoya recently transitioned from a research assistant with the THGP to a graduate student at Princeton University (where he is mentored by Dr. Julien Ayroles). In this post, Benja writes about this important and exciting transition.

I have had big transitions in my life but joining Princeton University as a Grad Student has been the biggest transition I’ve experienced so far. I always knew that I wanted to pursue a career in the sciences, and hence I chose to do a B.Sc. in Medical Laboratory Science with the hope that I could perform ‘experiments’ in the lab that would be of benefit to society in one way or the other. Little did I know that my passion for science and discovery would land me a scholarship in one of the best universities in the world. Princeton’s EEB Department is well known for being a leader in the field of Evolutionary Biology. I am thankful for being a grad student in the department since I now have numerous resources at my disposal to make my research goals a success. My plan is to leverage these resources and use them to determine if observable phenotypes associated with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) arise when a person experiences a lifestyle transition that causes a mismatch between their environment and their evolutionary adaptations.

For me, it is always exciting working in the lab and even more exciting doing field work with communities in the remote areas of Kenya. These communities are not only rich in culture, but also in other ways that can only be explained by the science that we are doing. Personally, I hope to demystify the complex interactions between our genome and the environment to pinpoint which specific transitions in life (e.g., active to sedentary lifestyle, rural to urban migration, or dietary transitions) lead to increased risk of NCDs such as hypertension and obesity. To do so, I will approach these diseases from an evolutionary lens, because as it has famously been put, “nothing makes sense except in the light of evolution”. It is my hope that I get to work with more communities in remote areas around the world, because I believe that the data we generate will inform our understanding of the pandemic rise in NCDs. This knowledge is especially useful for developing countries that are suffering under the burden that soaring NCD rates place on the healthcare system. Additionally, communities in remote locations stand to benefit the most from our results since they are currently experiencing lifestyle transitions at such a rapid pace.]]><![CDATA[New paper in EMPH!]]>Mon, 03 Jan 2022 18:05:29 GMThttp://turkanahgp.com/news/new-paper-in-emphCheck out our new paper, recently published in Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health!

]]><![CDATA[Updates from the field: September 2021]]>Sun, 31 Oct 2021 20:25:39 GMThttp://turkanahgp.com/news/updates-from-the-field-september-2021Finally, back to doing field work in Northern Kenya, what an amazing feeling! COVID had brought all field work to a standstill, and we've been focusing for the last year and a half on generating data from previously collected samples. However, with strict vaccination, quarantine, and testing policies in place, we were able to make a trip to several remote areas of Northern Kenya in late September/early October. As usual, the THGP team received a warm welcome from Turkana communities. The people appreciate the free medical care they get from doctors and nurse practitioners who work with the THGP, and through our multi-year history of working with particular communities, participants are now excited to enable our research. In particular, we all hope that the discoveries made by the THGP will inform future health policies that will ultimately prove useful to all Turkana.

Warm welcome from the Turkana community at Loima Hills. Photo credit: Benjamin Muhoya

During this past trip, we implemented a new and improved study protocol with fine-tuned interview questions, new point of care devices, and streamlined biological sample processing protocols. It was a great trip, but was constrained by one factor beyond our control: halfway through out trip, there was a heavy downpour that flooded our camping site. We had to move camp in the middle of the night, and we were lucky that we didn’t lose any of the collected samples or sustain any equipment damage. You don't expect these particular weather challenges in the (usually) arid Turkana region!

]]><![CDATA[New preprint online!]]>Sun, 31 Oct 2021 20:19:35 GMThttp://turkanahgp.com/news/new-preprint-onlineOur second study from the Turkana Health and Genomics Project is online in preprint form at medRxiv! This study examines the relationship between socioeconomic status and health in Turkana individuals practicing traditional pastoralism versus living in urban areas. We find that higher socioeconomic status and greater material wealth predicts better self-reported health in pastoralist Turkana, but worse cardiometabolic health in urban Turkana. Thus, we show that the relationship between wealth and health can be highly-context dependent, and even vary within a single population as a function of lifestyle. Check it out!]]><![CDATA[COVID educational materials]]>Tue, 10 Nov 2020 20:00:03 GMThttp://turkanahgp.com/news/covid-educational-materialsCheck out these beautiful COVID educational materials put together by our colleagues at Arizona State University (in particular, Sarah Mathew, a cultural anthropologist who also works with Turkana). Please feel free to distribute and post these materials wherever they can be helpful. Contact us at turkanagenome@gmail.com with any questions.

]]><![CDATA[Article in Kenyan newspaper, The Star]]>Tue, 10 Nov 2020 19:54:39 GMThttp://turkanahgp.com/news/article-in-kenyan-newspaper-the-starCheck out this interesting article summarizing our recent work on lifestyle change and health!]]><![CDATA[New paper published!]]>Thu, 22 Oct 2020 18:44:04 GMThttp://turkanahgp.com/news/october-22nd-2020Our first study from the Turkana Health and Genomics Project was published today in Science Advances! There is much more exciting science ahead, but it's great to see the first work from our study coming out. This was such an incredible effort by so many people.

Liz Fuller-Wright also wrote a great lay summary of our results, focusing especially on the partnership between Mpala Research Centre, Princeton University, and the Turkana community that is so essential to our work.

]]><![CDATA[Grant awarded from CZI!]]>Fri, 11 Sep 2020 16:54:03 GMThttp://turkanahgp.com/news/grant-awarded-from-czi

In May 2020, the THGP was awarded a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative as part of their new program to understand the role of inflammation in human disease using single-cell sequencing technology. Julien Ayroles, in collaboration with Micheal Mina (Harvard University) and Britt Adamson (Princeton University), will use these funds to ask how a Western diet and lifestyle contributes to the emerge of disease in the Turkana. The work will focus especially on the role of the immune system in linking Western lifestyles with compromised health, using cutting-edge methods to profile genome-wide gene expression levels at single-cell resolution. Check out the CZI website to learn more.

Julien collecting samples (cryopreserved peripheral blood mononuclear cells) that can be used for single-cell analysis.

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