Harry Ostrer
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Dr. Harry Ostrer is a geneticist known for his study, writings, and lectures about the origins of the Jewish people. He is a Professor of Pathology and Genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University and Director of Genetic and Genomic Testing at Montefiore Medical Center. For the prior 21 years he was Professor of Pediatrics, Pathology and Medicine and Director of the Human Genetics Program at New York University School of Medicine.[1][2][3][4]
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[edit] Education
Dr. Harry Ostrer graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Physics, Course 8) and received his M.D. degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He did a pediatrics residency and a medical genetics fellowship at Johns Hopkins University and trained in molecular genetics at the National Institutes of Health. Prior to his position at NYU, Dr. Ostrer was a member of the faculty of the University of Florida Medical School in Gainsville, Florida.
[edit] Research
Ostrer contends that the Jewish people descend from a Middle Eastern tribe that coalesced approximately 2500 years ago, a time in accordance with biblical accounts of Jewish origins. This tribe fragmented and spread throughout Europe, Asia, and North Africa, but remained endogamous. Dr. Ostrer’s laboratory studies the disease allele markers present in these different Jewish populations. He summarizes the field in a 2001 Nature Reviews Genetics article.[5] Specifically, Ostrer’s lab explains migrations of Jewish populations by the genetic diseases each population carries.
Ostrer’s research has demonstrated the principles of genetic epidemiology on a very large scale. According to Ostrer:
- If a mutation occurred before or during the Temple period, when all Jews represented one population, such a mutation should be present in all Diaspora Jews (Ostrer has characterize the mutations purportedly present in Roman era Jews.
- If a mutation occurred more recently, then that mutation should only occur in Jewish populations including descendants of the original mutant individual (for example, BRCA2 mutations in Ashkenazi Jews).
- Seeming exceptions to this principle can be explained by admixture with local non-Jewish populations or with distant Jewish populations.
Ostrer currently directs the largest study of Jewish genetics to date, the ‘’Genetic Analysis of Jewish Populations.’’ The goal of this study is to assess the relatedness of Jewish populations across the world. Additionally, Ostrer has begun to generate a Jewish version of the popular HapMap Project. He is working on a book summarizing the genetic history of Jewish populations for a popular audience.
[edit] Lectures
Ostrer has lectured on four continents about Jewish genetics. Recently, he has addressed the Jewish Genealogical Society, the New York Academy of Medicine, and the New York Academy of Science.
[edit] Press
In addition to his research article publications, Ostrer is frequently consulted by New York Times science reporters Nicholas Wade (4, 5) and Amy Harmon, (6) and op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof (7, 8). Ostrer has written two books on genetics, Essentials of Medical Genomics (2002) and Non-Mendelian Genetics in Humans (1998).
Interviewed in 2003 he said: "There are meaningful distinctions among groups that may have implications for disease susceptibility. The right-wing version of this is 'The Bell Curve,' and that's pseudoscience -- that's not real. But there can be a middle ground between left-wing political correctness and right-wing meanness."[6]
[edit] Awards
Dr. Ostrer has received awards from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, Skin Cancer Foundation and Weizmann Institute of Science. In October, 2010, he was named to the Forward 50 list of “people who have made an imprint in the past year on the ways in which American Jews view the world and relate to each other.”
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ http://library.med.nyu.edu/cgi-bin/facbib-bio-sr.pl?RCD=J0163666&NAME=Purushothaman,%20Radhika;%20Gunturu,%20Sreenivas%20Dutt;%20Anhalt,%20Henry;%20Ten,%20Svetlana;%20Friedman,%20Andrew;%20Pearlman,%20Alexander;%20Ostrer,%20Harry.
- ^ http://library.med.nyu.edu/cgi-bin/facbib-bio-sr.pl?RCD=J0139067&NAME=Fischer%20I;%20Cunliffe%20C;%20Bollo%20RJ;%20Weiner%20HL;%20Devinsky%20O;%20Ruiz-Tachiquin%20ME;%20Venuto%20T;%20Pearlman%20A;%20Chiriboga%20L;%20Schneider%20RJ;%20Ostrer%20H;%20Miller%20DC.
- ^ Nishio, J.; Gaglia, JL; Turvey, SE; Campbell, C; Benoist, C; Mathis, D (2006). "Islet Recovery and Reversal of Murine Type 1 Diabetes in the Absence of Any Infused Spleen Cell Contribution". Science 311 (5768): 1775–8. doi:10.1126/science.1124004. PMID 16556845.
- ^ Pearlman, A; Loke, J; Le Caignec, C; White, S; Chin, L; Friedman, A; Warr, N; Willan, J et al (2010). "Mutations in MAP3K1 cause 46,XY disorders of sex development and implicate a common signal transduction pathway in human testis determination". American journal of human genetics 87 (6): 898–904. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2010.11.003. PMC 2997363. PMID 21129722. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=2997363.
- ^ Ostrer, H. (2001). "A genetic profile of contemporary Jewish populations". Nature Reviews Genetics 2 (11): 891–898. doi:10.1038/35098506. PMID 11715044.
- ^ Is Race Real?. Kristof, Nicholas D. New York Times. July 11, 2003.
[edit] Journal Citations
2. Mendelian Diseases Among Roman Jews: Implications for the Origins of Disease Alleles. ‘’Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.’’ Vol. 84, No. 12 4405-4409 (1999).
3. The carrier frequency of the BRCA2 6174delT mutation among Ashkenazi Jewish individuals is approximately 1%. ‘’Nature Genetics.’’ 14, 188 - 190 (1996).
4. In DNA, New Clues to Jewish Roots. Wade, Nicholas. New York Times. May 14, 2002.
5. Gene Mutation Tied To Colon Cancers In Ashkenazi Jews. Wade, Nicholas. New York Times. August 26, 1997.
6. As Gene Test Menu Grows, Who Gets to Choose?. Harmon, Amy. New York Times. July 21, 2004.
8. Staying Alive, Staying Human. Kristof, Nicholas D. New York Times. February 11, 2003.
