Graduate student studies lifestyle-associated diseases as evolutionary mismatch
By: Andy Flick, Evolutionary Studies Initiative scientific coordinator
Audrey Arner, a first-year Ph.D. student in Dr. Amanda Lea’s lab, recently earned a pilot research grant from the Evolutionary Studies Initiative (ESI) to study the evolutionary mismatch hypothesis. Arner described evolutionary mismatch as, “the same allele that was beneficial in the ancestral environment could be detrimental in the novel environment, which could lead to negative health impacts.”
Looking at the big picture, Arner said, “these results will help us better understand how lifestyle-associated diseases emerge due to evolutionary mismatch.”
Arner is trained in biological anthropology and human genetics.
“I wanted to make sure that I use my anthropological skills to make connections with communities and make sure that my research was a mutually beneficial partnership while also doing functional genomics research to understand how the interaction of adaptation and lifestyle change impacts health,” she explained. “Dr. Lea’s lab was perfect for that. Vanderbilt also seemed to have a lot of resources available, especially the Evolutionary Studies group”
Evolutionary mismatches could be driven by changing environments due to climate change or migration from rural, traditional environments to urban environments. Traits that used to be beneficial – imagine a propensity to store fat in an environment where food sources are unpredictable – might now be detrimental and lead to cardiovascular disease or obesity.
Arner will be working with other anthropologists and physicians through the Orang Asli Health and Lifeways Project (OAHeLP). The OAHeLP has a working relationship with a subset of the indigenous Malaysian people known as the Semang. According to Arner, “the Semang are a hunter-gatherer population that is transitioning to a more urbanized lifestyle such that individuals of the same genetic background live in both traditional and urban settings.”
The research will take her to Malaysia where she will work with local scientists and medical doctors to collect blood samples. These samples will be used to generate whole genome sequencing data where she can identify areas of the genome under selection. Arner will then identify whether selected loci have different phenotypic effects in traditional versus urban settings.
She will also use data generated with this grant to train undergraduate students in methods of biological anthropology and evolutionary genomics. These students will be well prepared for lab-based or bioinformatic careers in industry or academia. Arner also hopes to have undergraduate trainees pursue their own questions and really get excited about work in the lab.
Results from this work would serve as a proof of concept and preliminary data allowing Arner to apply for larger research grants – such as the National Science Foundation’s Biological Anthropology Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant and the Leakey Foundation’s Graduate Student Research Grant. It is also a high priority to get the results she finds back to the communities from which the data come. To this end, Arner will also help train Semang field assistants in molecular techniques.