Submitted on February 13, 2009
Accepted on April 17, 2009

The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans

Sarah A. Tishkoff ^1*, Floyd A. Reed ², Françoise R. Friedlaender ³, Christopher Ehret ⁴, Alessia Ranciaro ⁵, Alain Froment ⁶, Jibril B. Hirbo ¹, Agnes A. Awomoyi ⁷, Jean-Marie Bodo ⁸, Ogobara Doumbo ⁹, Muntaser Ibrahim ¹⁰, Abdalla T. Juma ¹⁰, Maritha J. Kotze ¹¹, Godfrey Lema ¹², Jason H. Moore ¹³, Holly Mortensen ¹⁴, Thomas B. Nyambo ¹², Sabah A. Omar ¹⁵, Kweli Powell ¹⁶, Gideon S. Pretorius ¹⁷, Michael W. Smith ¹⁸, Mahamadou A. Thera ⁹, Charles Wambebe ¹⁹, James L. Weber ²⁰, Scott M. Williams ²¹

¹ Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.; Departments of Genetics and Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
² Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.; Present address: Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, 24306 Plön, Germany.
³ Independent researcher, Sharon, CT 06069, USA.
⁴ Department of History, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
⁵ Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.; Departments of Genetics and Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.; Dipartimento di Biologia ed Evoluzione, Università di Ferrara, 44100 Ferrara, Italy.
⁶ UMR 208, IRD-MNHN, Musée de l’Homme, 75116 Paris, France.
⁷ Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.; Present address: Department of Internal Medicine, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
⁸ Ministère de la Recherche Scientifique et de l’Innovation, BP 1457, Yaoundé, Cameroon.
⁹ Malaria Research and Training Center, University of Bamako, Bamako, Mali.
¹⁰ Department of Molecular Biology, Institute of Endemic Diseases, University of Khartoum, 15-13 Khartoum, Sudan.
¹¹ Department of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Stellenbosch, Tygerberg 7505, South Africa.
¹² Department of Biochemistry, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
¹³ Departments of Genetics and Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, NH 03756, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.; Present address: Office of Research and Development, National Center for Computational Toxicology, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, USA.
¹⁵ Kenya Medical Research Institute, Center for Biotechnology Research and Development, 54840-00200 Nairobi, Kenya.
¹⁶ Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.; Present address: College of Education, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
¹⁷ Division of Human Genetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Stellenbosch, Tygerberg 7505, South Africa.
¹⁸ Laboratory of Genomic Diversity, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD 21702, USA.
¹⁹ International Biomedical Research in Africa, Abuja, Nigeria.
²⁰ Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation, Marshfield, WI 54449, USA.
²¹ Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Center for Human Genetics Research, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sarah A. Tishkoff , E-mail: tishkoff{at}mail.med.upenn.edu

These authors contributed equally to this work.

These authors contributed equally to this work.