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Name of Submitter:
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Andrew Feinberg
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Title of proposed idea:
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Experimental Models of Evolution in Medicine
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What is the major obstacle/challenge in the biomedical research field? What is needed to overcome this obstacle/challenge?
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The study of evolution is the original great biological problem and gave coherence and purpose to biology 150 years ago. Furthermore, Dobzhansky pointed out that nothing in biology makes sense except in the context of evolution. While evolutionary principles underlie much of modern genomic studies, e.g. in the almost implicit attention paid to sequence conservation, there is little experimental research into the mechanisms of natural selection at the molecular level, particularly in higher organisms, and the relationship of these changes to the environment. It is very difficult to understand, for example, effects of changing diet in the Western world on disease incidence, without understanding such questions in the context of natural selection. Furthermore, the very high rate of embryonic/fetal loss in humans suggests that we are very incompletely evolved, and thus that evolution is at the heart of many questions in human variation and disease. |
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What emerging scientific opportunity is ripe for investment by the Common Fund?
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It is now possible to perform robust genomic, epigenomic, transcriptional, and proteomic analysis of model organisms relatively inexpensively. This makes it possible to test the effects of environmental manipulation on the rate and nature of natural selection, and to understand the relationship between phenotypic diversity in a population and genetic assimilation within subpopulations. |
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What are the potential Common Fund investments that could accelerate scientific progress in this field?
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Targeted interdisciplinary research that integrates the thinking of investigators in developmental biology, model organisms, environmental toxicology/nutrition, systems biology, population genetics, genomics (in all its forms), and translational investigators. |
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If a Common Fund program on this topic achieved its objectives, what would be the impact?
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We might begin to understand the drivers and passengers in population shifts in disease susceptibility. We might better understand those environmental factors that have broad impact in public health. We might better understand the underlying basis of phenotypic variation, particularly as it relates to the environment. We might accelerate the transformation of biology to a highly mathematical/quantitative field like other areas of science. |
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