The 45th In Silico Megabank Research Seminar will be held on Tuesday, February 18.

This Time, we will be welcoming Dr. Naruya Saito, National Institute of Genetics as our lecturer, and he will be speaking on “Human DNA Evolution in Japanese Archipelago: Past and Present”.

・Date/Time: February 18(Tues.) 17:00‐18:30
・Venue: Conference Room 1(2nd Floor), Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization
・Title: Human DNA Evolution in Japanese Archipelago: Past and Present
・Lecturer: Naruya Saito (National Institute of Genetics )

＊This lecture is transferable as a class in the medical research-related lecture course.

・Abstract: The approach to explain the origin of Japanese people from 2 perspectives such as Jomon-type who have lived since Jomon period and immigrants to ancient Japan after Yayoi period is called the “dual structure model.”  Based on this model, first, the descendant of the Asian group who had long settled in Southeast Asia immigrated to Japanese islands in the Old Stone Age and resulted in the development of Jomon people. Time past and when Yayoi period began, there were immigrants from Northeast Asia. They shared the same ancient population as Jomon Japanese but later went through unique changes, forming separate features such as face from Jomon Japanese. These immigrants from the continent continued to breed with the descendants of the Jomon Japanese who were the indigenous heritage. However, the descendant population of Jomon Japanese in Hokkaido did not breed with such immigrants and developed as Ainu Japanese. Also, Southwest Islands around Okinawa received a number of immigrants from the mainland; however, in comparison to the main Japanese land, characteristics of Jomon Japanese remained strong.  This model was mainly introduced by researchers such as Kazuo Haninara who analyzed human bone data, and the analysis result of genome-wide SNP data also supports the basic outline of this dual structure model. On the other hand, mitochondrial DNA study was the center of focus to directly examine DNA of the ancient human genomes until now. But recently the genome mapping team comprised of my laboratory and National Science Museum succeeded in determining a part of genomic DNA which remained in the human bones excavated from multiple Jomon shell midden sites in Tohoku area. These results clearly show that Jomon Japanese were highly unique across East Eurasian population. In this lecture, evolution of human genomic DNA of those Japanese inhabitants from past and present including the latest results will be introduced.

・Organizer: Yosuke Kawai, Masao Nagasaki

Access : http://www.megabank.tohoku.ac.jp/english/info/access.html