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.

As of April, the THGP field team has been "working from home" like so many of us because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This precaution is for the safety of the field team as well as the study participants, many of whom live in remote areas with limited access to health care. The THGP field team has been keeping busy during this time period though. We've been using the time away from the field to prepare new interviews, collate and enter previously collected data, and follow up with previous study participants by phone. Charles and Ben have also used the time to organize previously collected biological samples and to extract both genomic DNA (for whole genome sequencing) and fecal DNA (for microbiome research). Despite the challenges of a global pandemic, the THGP continues to make scientific progress!