You Shed DNA Everywhere You Go

By Jenny Whilde and Jessica Alice Farrell

Human DNA can be sequenced from small amounts of water, sand and air in the environment to potentially extract identifiable information like genetic lineage, gender, and health risks, according to our new research.

Every cell of the body contains DNA. Because each person has a unique genetic code, DNA can be used to identify individual people. Typically, medical practitioners and researchers obtain human DNA through direct sampling, such as blood tests, swabs or biopsies. However, all living things, including animals, plants and microbes, constantly shed DNA. The water, soil and even the air contain microscopic particles of biological material from living organisms.

DNA that an organism has shed into the environment is known as environmental DNA, or eDNA. For the last couple of decades, scientists have been able to collect and sequence eDNA from soil or water samples to monitor biodiversity, wildlife populations and disease-causing pathogens. Tracking rare or elusive endangered species through their eDNA has been a boon to researchers, since traditional monitoring methods such as observation or trapping can be difficult, often unsuccessful and intrusive to the species of interest.

Researchers using eDNA tools usually focus only on the species they’re studying and disregard DNA from other species. However, humans also shed, cough and flush DNA into their surrounding environment. And as our team of she was shown Naache Mayuri, a movie about Sudha Chandran who had lost her leg, and the girl decided to continue her dream of dancing. It notes in the post, that a year after her initial surgery, she picked up her ghungroos and started to dance again.

In a different article by TheBetterIndia, Hussain runs a dance academy called “We Are One” where the students are all Persons with a Disability (PWD). Hussain notes that at a young, he had a high fever that left him wheelchair bound. Hussain describes that at the Amar Jyoti Charitable Trust where he attended school, dance came into his life; at the age of 12, he was able to perform in a dance that he describes as an awakening for him.

He remarks that the journey for him in dance was not an easy one and describes that as he comes from a Muslim background, his family could not understand his desire to learn Bharatanatyam. He mentions that he did not start in the dance to prove any points, but mainly because it brought him joy.

The dance academy not only performed Bharatanatyam, but also to Salsa, Manipuri and martial dances, as well as yoga on wheels.

This leads to the topic of age. If paradigms are being shifted with regards to abilities and backgrounds, what about age? How “avant garde” can we get in this construct?

I attended a show by the Rainbow Dance Company at Meredith College that was scheduled at the end of March, and really enjoyed the show. On the website Artstogether.org/rainbow, the Rainbow Dance Co is the innovation of Lemma Mackie who is also the Arts Together founder, and it is described as the only multi-age modern dance company in North Carolina.

The company has members from ages 10 through 60 plus, where the members explore various societal topics through dance and they participate uniquely.

For example, a 10-year-old has the courage to provide artistic critique to their elders where both can respect each other as peers.

This is a direct contrast in paradigms to traditional thoughts in society where children are expected to listen to adults, and where conflicts can be seen between generations (i.e. generation X vs, generation Y, versus generation Z and so forth). This model in the Rainbow Dance Co is a constructive method of teaching how different ages need to work together and respect each other as individuals, versus stereotyping them by their ages.

People also have notions of how different people of different ages should be and act. Sometimes a kid who may be wise, may seem older than this age. For instance, a child who may be precocious and loves to learn, may be told by someone older to “Go outside and play.”

I have heard a child in a class say something so wise, that some may wonder how such a young child had such a deep awareness. Or we think that certain activities are limited to certain ages.

This leads to an interesting Indian movie that is on Netflix called KD. In the movie, it explores the happenstance friendship between an elder man and a young child. The movie itself could be considered quirky, and an “indie” film, which are the type of films I enjoy. It explores the deeper messages of who we are as people. For instance, are we defined by societies’ expectations of who we should be, or should that journey of who we are be defined by ourselves? What path should we follow and is one path suitable for everyone? Or can a new path be forged?

As a society, as artists, as dancers, and as individuals, these are questions that may not have one answer or one solution.

The past may have some answers, or the present may have some answers, or we may need to search for the answers. But when there is not a clear path in place, or when it is time to reevaluate current norms and thinking, or when we just want to have fun and try something new, challenging the status quo may create the required changes in society.

If you are contemplating what is the best time to start something, the present is the gift.

This series of articles is about the journey and unique insights of an adult dance student learning classical Indian dance and the experiences and perspective of taking classical Indian dance as both an American and an Indian.

Preethi Sriram is a classical dance enthusiast and lifelong learner of dance.

Contact: SriramPreethi@hotmail.com to explore political unrest. The choreography is based on artistic director George Staib’s childhood experiences as an Armenian born in Tehran and living in the United States since he was ten years old.

There are additional shows, all of which feature interesting dance. Just for one peek into July, the classically modern Paul Taylor Dance Company (PTDC), another of my favorites, returns July 14 and 15 and is a group not to be missed. By redefining art from beautiful to thoughtful, I find Igor Stravinsky to be one of the most important artists of the twentieth century.

I’m happy that PTDC will include music by Stravinksy as well as jazz artists like Wynton Marsalis, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, and other Big Band musicians. PTDC dance is always rich in detail and firmly rooted in ballet with gorgeous costumes.

The ADF website americandancefestival.org has the details on all the events, including ticketing. It offers something for varied tastes and ages, including children. If you are on twitter, I tweet about the shows @dbarman.

Dilip Barman is a lover of culture and teacher of math and vegan food/nutrition teacher. Check out his monthly show somanycooks.com.

Contact: dilip@trianglemathinstitute.com

DNA continued from page 72 geneticists, ecologists and marine biologists in the Duffy Lab at the University of Florida found, signs of human life can be found everywhere but in the most isolated locations.

Animals, humans and viruses in eDNA

Our team uses environmental DNA to study endangered sea turtles and the viral tumors to which they are susceptible. Tiny hatchling sea turtles shed DNA as they crawl along the beach on their way to the ocean shortly after they are born. Sand scooped from their tracks contains enough DNA to provide valuable insights into the turtles and the chelonid herpesviruses and fibropapillomatosis tumors that afflict them. Scooping a liter of water from the tank of a recovering sea turtle under veterinary care equally provides a wealth of genetic information for research. Unlike blood or skin sampling, collecting eDNA causes no stress to the animal.

We also tested the technique in Ireland, tracing along a river that winds from a remote mountaintop, through small rural villages and into the sea at a larger town of 13,000 inhabitants. We found human DNA everywhere but in the remote mountain tributary where the river starts, far from human habitation.

We also collected air samples from a room in our wildlife veterinary hospital in Florida. People who were present in the room gave us permission to take samples from the air. We recovered DNA matching the people, the animal patient and common animal viruses present at the time of collection. Surprisingly, the human eDNA found in the local environment was intact enough for us to identify mutations associated with disease and to determine the genetic ancestry of people who live in the area. Sequencing DNA that volunteers left in their footprints in the sand even yielded part of their sex chromosomes.

Ethical implications of collecting human eDNA

Our team dubs inadvertent retrieval of human DNA from environmental samples “human genetic bycatch.” We’re calling for deeper discussion about how to ethically handle human environmental DNA.

Human eDNA could present significant advances to research in fields as diverse as conservation, epidemiology, forensics and farming. If handled correctly, human eDNA could help archaeologists track down undiscovered ancient human settlements, allow biologists to monitor cancer mutations in a given population or provide law enforcement agencies useful forensic information.

However, there are also myriad ethical implications relating to the inadvertent or deliberate collection and analysis of human genetic bycatch. Identifiable information can be extracted from eDNA, and accessing this level of detail about individuals or populations comes with responsibilities relating to consent and confidentiality.

While we conducted our study with the approval of our institutional review board, which ensures that studies on people adhere to ethical research guidelines, there is no guarantee that everyone will treat this information ethically.

Genetic sequencing technology used to decode DNA has improved rapidly in recent years, and it is now possible to easily sequence the DNA of every organism in a sample from the environment.

Our team suspected that the sand and water samples we were using to study sea turtles would also contain DNA from a number of other species – including, of course, humans. What we didn’t know was just how informative the human DNA we could extract would be.

To figure this out, we took samples from a variety of locations in Florida, including the ocean and rivers in urban and rural areas, sand from isolated beaches and a remote island never usually visited by people. We found human DNA in all of those locations except the remote island, and these samples were high quality enough for analysis and sequencing.

Many questions arise regarding human environmental DNA. For instance, who should have access to human eDNA sequences? Should this information be made publicly available? Should consent be required before taking human eDNA samples, and from whom? Should researchers remove human genetic information from samples originally collected to identify other species?

We believe it is vital to implement regulations that ensure collection, analysis and data storage are carried out ethically and appropriately. Policymakers, scientific communities, and other stakeholders need to take human eDNA collection seriously and balance consent and privacy against the possible benefits of studying eDNA. Raising these questions now can help ensure everyone is aware of the capabilities of eDNA and provide more time to develop protocols, regulations to ensure appropriate use of eDNA techniques & ethical handling of human genetic bycatch.