rick kittles biography
Career: Various New York and Washington, DC, area high schools, teacher, early 1990s; Howard University, Washington, DC, assistant professor and director of National Human Genome Center African American Hereditary Prostate Cancer Study Network, 1998-2004; African Burial Ground Project, New York City, researcher; African Ancestry, Inc., founding partner (with Gina Paige) and scientific director, 2002; Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, associate professor, 2004. Rick Antonius Kittles (born in Sylvania, Georgia, United States) is an American biologist specializing in human genetics. [14] Kittles has also been a part of many cutting edge developments including the progress of genetic markers and how an individuals ancestry can be used to help identify risk of disease and health outcomes. Johnson concurs, adding that DNA reveals the limitations of the very idea of race. 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. When he was young he hoped to become a rap musician, but he was curious from the start about human origins and differences. 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. Prior to forming AfricanAncestry.com, Paige was the founder and president of GPG Strategic Marketing Resources. 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. He is currently the leader 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 February 2003. Objective. Feb 25 2023. Autosomal, Mitochondrial, and Y Chromosome DNAVariation in Finland: Evidence for a Male-Specic Bottleneck RICK A. KITTLES,1,2* ANDREW W. BERGEN,3 MARGRIT URBANEK,1 MATTI VIRKKUNEN,5 MARKKU LINNOILA,4 DAVID GOLDMAN,3 AND JEFFREY C. LONG1 1Section on Population Genetics and Linkage, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, Another research enterprise in which Kittles became involved at the beginning of his career was the African Burial Ground Project in New York City, where Howard researchers led by anthropologist Michael Blakey exhumed the remains of 408 African Americans from an eighteenth-century graveyard. Yet it was outside of the academic world that Kittles made headlines. In 1997 he joined a research team examining remains from a colonial-era black cemetery that once occupied six acres of lower Manhattan. Geneticist Rick Kittles, a professor at Ohio State University, became one of the hottest young scientific researchers in the country in the early 2000s. Rick Kittles, Ph.D. Scientific Director, African Ancestry, Inc. 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. 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. Any criticism Kittles encountered was overshadowed by the enthusiastic response he immediately received from African Americans interested in learning more about their backgrounds. Dr. Kittles' research has focused on understanding the complex issues. Cognitive Biases White Fragility . Addresses: Office Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology & Medical Genetics, 690C Tzagournis Medical Research Facility, 420 W. 12th Ave., Columbus, OH 43210. Associate Professor, The University of Chicago, Department of Medicine Kittles received his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from George Washington University. Kittles discusses why using race in biomedical studies is problematic using examples from U.S. groups which transcend "racial" boundaries and bear the burden of health disparities. Its recorded in our genome.. Kittles also co-directed the molecular genetics unit of Howard University's National Human Genome Center. Retrieved February 23, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/kittles-rick. S O Y Keita, R A Kittles, C D M Royal, G E Bonney, P Furbert-Harris, G M Dunston & C N Rotimi Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA S O Y Keita Kittles was raised in Central Islip, New York. His work on tracing the genetic ancestry of African Americans has brought to focus many issues, new and old, which relate to race, ancestry, identity, and group membership. Total downloads of all papers by Rick Kittles. Rick Antonius Kittles is an American biologist specializing in human genetics and a Senior Vice President for Research at the Morehouse School of Medicine. 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. It was while doing this work that Kittles and his associates had a brainstorm. Dr. Kittles co-founded African Ancestry, Inc., a private company that provides DNA testing services for tracing African genetic lineages to genealogists and the general public around the world. Kittles says DNA offers a way to reclaim identity. The idea gained support from a group of Boston ministers who helped organize the program. African Ancestry continued to grow and to gain national attention; an article on the company appeared in People in the fall of 2004. He is also Associate Director of Health Equities of COH Comprehensive Cancer Center. [1] He has published on the prostate cancer genetics of African Americans. Pan Afric, Raymond A. Winbush Read all about Rick Kittles with TV Guide's exclusive biography including their list of awards, celeb facts and more at TV Guide. 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. Thats when the database work began in earnest. Dr. Kittles is an international leader on race and genetics, health disparities, and cancer genetics. That bothered me, not knowing more about where in Africa.". Rick Antonius Kittles (born in Sylvania, Georgia, United States) is an American biologist specializing in human genetics. Giving occasional public lectures about melanin, Kittles speculated that high levels of the chemical in the inner ear might account for what some considered a heightened sensitivity to music and rhythm among humans of African descent. Historical records suggest that between 1640 and 1795 as many as 15,000 slaves were laid to rest in the New York African Burial Ground; after the cemetery closed, it was paved over as the burgeoning city expanded. The information provided a sense of belonging that Davidson previously lacked. 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. Rick Antonius Kittles is an American biologist specializing in human genetics and a Senior Vice President for Research at the Morehouse School of Medicine. Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Biography submission guide. RICK KITTLES, PH.D. After the media attention on the genetics of the project started to erupt, Kittles says, many folks were like, If you can do that for the bones of dead people, you should be able to do it for me.. All Rights Reserved He locates closely related lineages for the remaining 15 percent. Dr. It is through his years of research on genetic variation and his passion for the movements of African people throughout the world that AfricanAncestry.com was conceived. 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.. He is also Associate Director of Health Equities of COH Comprehensive Cancer Center. Many customers made plans to visit African countries after receiving their test results. Though he hoped to launch African Ancestry, Inc. by 2001, Kittles faced months of delays as he patiently worked to answer the objections of critics and deal with the complexities of running a business while working in the academic world. Race becomes a proxy for so many other thingsby race,do you mean socioeconomic class? Between 1991 and 2003, the New York Times covered the story more than 100 times. 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. He was looking for prominent African Americans to be guinea pigs, and unbeknownst to him, I had been interested more than interested, obsessed with my own family tree since I was 9 years old. Rick Antonius Kittles was born in 1976(?) BLS 1003 The Concept of Race. To overcome that wall is more empowering than I can describe., Kittless criticsand there are manyworry that hes promising too much too fast. 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. In 1998 he was hired at Howard Unviersity as an assistant professor of microbiology and named director of the AAHPC (African American Heredity Prostate Cancer) Study Network. In 2003 Kittles and his business partner, Dr. Gina Paige, started their company African Ancestry. If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. In addition, he discovered, through of a DNA analysis, he descends mainly of people of Dakar, Senegal, and Nigeria's Hausa people. ." With the industrys largest and most comprehensive database of over 30,000 indigenous African DNA samples, Dr. Kittles went to Howard University in 1998 and helped to establish a national cooperative network to study the genetics of . [http://www.physanth.org/positions/race.html AAPA Statement on Biological Aspects of Wikipedia, Shomarka Keita Shomarka Omar Sundiata Yahye (S.O.Y.) Already, he had tried out his ancestry tests on a few subjects, among them his parents. As African-Americans, our connection and contact with our family members vary from tight nuclear families to large, well-kept branches and . Contemporary Black biography. Like many African Americans, we knew nothing about where in Africa our ancestors were from, he says. 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. in Sylvania, GA; raised in Central Islip, NY. [14] Nowadays, Kittles and his team have been busy conducting genetic sequencing trials to try and find variations in genes that affect a person's response to drugs.[12]. If you want to measure environment, say that. As a sociological concept, race remains a powerful force, but as a scientific proposition, it is a muddle. If you want to measure biology and genotypes, say so, he says. This project involved setting up national network of mostly African-American medical scientists who would enroll 100 families with at least four members who were afflicted with prostate cancer; blood samples were subjected to genetic research, with the intent of finding a genetic marker that might explain the high incidence of the disease among African-American men. In 2000, Harvard University Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr. sent his DNA to Rick Kittles, a geneticist at Howard University, to trace his ancestry.Dr. . You hit a wall in the antebellum South. Young African Americans grow up with the debilitating idea that their history begins with slavery. Boston was selected because its African-American population was relatively self-contained; many black Boston families could trace their roots to the American Revolution or even earlier. And he was careful to inform potential customers of the method's limitations, pointing out that a person's ancestors over several centuries numbered in the hundreds or thousands, only two of which (one on the father's side, one on the mother's) could be identified by African Ancestry's DNA tests. See also Other Works | Publicity Listings | Official Sites View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro Rick Antonius Kittles (syntynyt Sylvaniassa , Georgiassa , Yhdysvalloissa ) on yhdysvaltalainen biologi, joka on erikoistunut ihmisen genetiikkaan ja tutkimuksesta vastaava johtaja Morehouse School of Medicine -koulussa . Waldo Johnson, associate professor at the School of Social Service Administration and director of the Universitys Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, disagrees. One siblings results hold true for the others, and parents who swab their cheeks save their children the trouble. He grew up in Central Islip, New York. Currently, Kittles is an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Epidemiology and . Currently, he is Professor and Founding Director of the Division of Health Equities within the Department of Population Sciences at City of Hope. 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. Summarize this article for a 10 years old. "Flesh and Blood and DNA," Salon, http://archive.salon.com/health/feature/2000/05/12/roots/print.html (March 1, 2005). "The Finnish Population Bottlenecks: Exploiting the Evolutionary History of Genes for Population and Genetic Disease Studies." . Using the companys proprietary African Lineage Database along with close collaboration with historians, anthropologists and linguists, Dr. Kittles safeguards accuracy and integrity in determining African countries of origin and Tribes. "I was always the only black kid in the class. Clientsresults depend, Kittles says, on the ubiquity of their genetic profiles. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. [11]Kittles is known for his work on prostate cancer but he devotes part of his time to study and research other diseases such as colon and breast cancer, sickle cell anemia, red blood cell immune response, and pulmonary hypertension. City of Hope's translational research and personalized treatment protocols. He was a nationally recognized investigator whose specialties encompassed such vital topics as prostate cancer and the role of genetics in disease. 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. Previous to Ricky's current city of Pasadena, CA, Ricky Kittles lived in Tucson AZ. Some feared his work could be used to resanctify disgraced racial theories, or that DNAs essentializing power might engulf other aspects of African American identity. "The first thing they say is 'Tuskegee,'" referring to the infamous 40-year United States Public Health Service study in which hundreds of black men were unknowingly denied proper treatment for syphilis infections. But he gravitated toward subjects with broad social importance, and his eventual scholarly specialties were all hot topics: prostate cancer and its underlying causes, the relationship between genetics and disease prevalence more generally, and the validity (or lack of validity) of the concept of race. People are riveted by the possibility that they can find the tribe theyre descended from, says Harvard University African Americanstudies professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., but the Middle Passage prevented us from really finding out. Between the western shore of Africa and the eastern shore of America, names, identities, and religions vanished. He played college football at Iowa, and was drafted by the 49ers in the fifth round of the 2017 NFL Draft. 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. His company, African Ancestry, Inc., used his expertise in genetic testing to put African Americans, from celebrities to ordinary genealogy buffs, in touch with their roots in a way that Americans of European descent took for granted but that a displaced and enslaved people had mostly only dreamed of. Sociologist Reverend Al Sampson arrived in Lunsar, Sierra Leone, on a sunny December day in 2005. Kittles launched African Ancestry in February 2003 with Paige, a Washington, D.C., entrepreneur who, as president, oversees the company's marketing and finances. Culture? Genetics can help us have a more nuanced understanding of how we use that word, not just in the biologial sciences, but in the social sciences and humanities, he says. Van Velsen | 1 Stefanie Van Velsen Feb 21, 2019. Request Answer. window.__mirage2 = {petok:"0Ev87EeWO4E_u.VbiRlJhxTuEeIgHupvKirG_G1EQrI-86400-0"}; In February 2008 he appeared in part 4 of "African American Lives 2". One of the components that shapes identity, Kittles says, is family history, and for African Americans theres a void. Already, he had tried out his ancestry tests on a few subjects, among them his parents. I said, I have to reclaim what was taken away from me. Sampson told them he was like a tree from their forest that had been uprooted and stolen. specific ethnic groups of origin with an unrivaled level of detail, 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. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. Ph.D. dissertation. Sometimes Ricky goes by various nicknames including Ricky A Kittles, Ricahrd Kittles, Richard Kittles, Richard A Kittles and Anthony Kittles. However, the date of retrieval is often important. *Kittles, Ricky Antonius (1998). The two talked about science and history, and finding a sense of place. Journal of Black Studies 1995 26: 1, 36-61 Download Citation. Petition to nominate Dr. Rick Kittles, geneticist, for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. That DNA flows through the entire family, Sampson says. [13], Kittles has performed a large amount of research, including publishing over 160 peer-reviewed articles, over his career with much of this work being devoted to issues such as genetic ancestry and health disparities among African Americans and other minority groups. Where did rick kittles go to school? [http://medicine.uchicago.edu/faculty_profile/faculty_profile.asp?empl_id=9960]. He mounted his own research trips to the continent too, concentrating on its western territory, from which so many millions of African slaves had been captured and shipped to America. 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. "About Us," African Ancestry, Inc., www.africanancestry.com (March 1, 2005). Co-founder and Scientific Director African Ancestry Feb 2003 - Present20 years 1 month Professor and Associate Director for Health Equity City of Hope May 2017 - Aug 20225 years 4 months Duarte, CA. Rick Antonius Kittles (born in Sylvania, Georgia, United States) is an American biologist specializing in human genetics. 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. We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. 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 holds a B.S. Men inherit their mothersmitochondrial DNA, but only women can pass it on; thus, both genders can trace their maternal roots using mitochondrial DNA. dont lead to Africa at all, but to Europe. That variation is located within a gene that plays a role in DNA repair, and a malfunction in that process could contribute to cancer development. It is most often used to, Pan-Africanism is an internationalist philosophy that is based on the idea that Africans and people of African descent share a common bond. 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. Contemporary Black Biography. The village elders were expecting him. Kittles, Ricky Antonius (1998). 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. Paige was honored with an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy from Global Oved Dei Seminary University. South Africa? When they emerged, they bestowed the name Pa Sorie Kamara. Pa indicates an elder; Kamara associates Sampson with a particular house. Most tests, they wrote, can trace only a few ancestors out of thousands and likely wont identify every place or group that matches a clients genetic profile. https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/kittles-rick, "Kittles, Rick Some of the research followed traditional anthropological models: caskets were examined in search of links to traditional African practices, and the scientists learned what they could from dry bones about how these enslaved African Americans had spent their working life. Beginning in 1998, as he was completing his Ph.D. at George Washington University, Kittles was hired as an assistant professor of microbiology at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and also named director of the African American Hereditary Prostate Cancer (AAHPC) Study Network at the university's National Human Genome Center. 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 . Washington, D.C.: George Washington University. 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). A small crowd gathered as he stepped from the car, wearing a cobalt-blue safari suit and carrying a folder filled with papers. Black nationalism is the ideology of creating a nation-state for Africans living in the Maafa (a Kiswahili term used to describe t, Kitti's Hog-Nosed Bats (Craseonycteridae), https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/kittles-rick. Afrocentrism has a long and often misunderstood history. Kittles does this using tests that examine two components of the genome that remain essentially unchanged from one generation to the next: mitochondrial DNA, a maternally inherited genetic strand found outside the cell nucleus and separate from other genes; and the Y-chromosome, which passes from father to son.