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Scientists have constructed what they call “the world’s most accurate genetic map”of African-Americans DNA, designed to help them identify disease-causing genetic variations.

Researchers at the Welcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and Oxford University used data from 30,000 African Americans to create the map, and have already have identified differences in certain areas of the genome between African American and non-African populations.

Most maps created so far are based on DNA from people of European ancestry.

Studying African-American genetics gives unique information about African-Americans, but also it is uniquely informative to genetics of the family of man,” Herman Taylor, head of the Jackson Heart Study says. Because Africa is thought to be the place where all modern humans originally came from, it’s the DNA from African people that tells the first chapter in the story of modern human genetics.

Read more at NPR.com

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