BEHIND THE PAPER The questions driving this research stem from a persistent imbalance in human genomics: although populations from regions that are historically over-represented in global research have been studied extensively, many others remain strikingly under-represented. As a result, even basic questions about the origins, diversity and evolutionary history of these populations remain unanswered or are often addressed through frameworks that are biased or built from extremely limited data. This project represents nearly a decade of sustained collaboration between researchers across several Latin American countries and, crucially, continuing dialogue and partnership with Indigenous American communities. One of the most encouraging moments was realizing that such a large and diverse genomic effort could be coordinated by researchers from the countries of these communities. In this sense, the project stands as both a scientific and a social milestone, demonstrating that transformative genomic research can be led, largely funded and conducted in the regions the histories of which it seeks to understand.
On the significance of this study (from the additional "Comment" by the 1st & the Corresponding Author). It is unfortunate that this separate comment is paywalled, b/c it has this important statement about the ethics of the research. www.nature.com/articles/d41... #IndigenousHistories #aDNA 🧪
