Luísa Pereira, human population geneticist
Institute for Research and Innovation in Health (i3S)
It is extremely rare that a call for research projects allows us to apply our expertise in addressing a global symbolic historical moment: the circumnavigation by Fernão Magalhães’s crew. For human population geneticists, that 500-year-old expedition was amazing in enabling the first contact between so many diverse human populations. And that was the mote we followed to launch our project.
In the book “Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change”, Andrew Solomon states that “We need to spend time with those who are the same as us and with those who are different. Not knowing anyone just like us, who knows who and what we are, is almost impossible. But without people who are different from us, we become a caricature of ourselves, provincial in the extreme”. This discovery process keeps me travelling, not only at a personal level but, and I am very fortunate on this, also professionally. I am a human population geneticist, using genetics to infer the evolution of the human species and how populations are related. The amazing human genetic diversity at a worldwide scale is a continuous source of wonder.
So, when the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, in the Portuguese acronym) launched the call for scientific projects around the theme of the five hundred years after the circumnavigation by Fernão Magalhães’s crew (known globally as Magellan), I applied to it together with colleagues from diverse fields of knowledge. The nearly 270 crew members wanted to reach the Maluku Islands and its spices, by following an eastern route. They did not know how symbolic their voyage would become – the first time humans would circumnavigate the globe. Most of them perished, and never returned to the initial point in Spain, including Fernão Magalhães. When I think about this voyage, I am professionally biased to treasure the first contact with so many diverse human populations. The navigators also valued it, as testified by the abundant descriptions of these people in the posterior publication of the accounts of the voyage by the Italian pilot Antonio Pigafetta.
Usually, we conduct genetic research at large geographical scales, characterizing somewhat related populations, such as populations across the Sahel, from the Arabian Peninsula, or inhabitants of the Island Southeast Asia. But if we follow the Magellan route, and sample populations of key points, we end up having to deal with an impressive diversity level. We thought that it would be interesting to encompass all this diversity in a single research genetic study. If we are careful enough and sample smaller and more isolated groups, we will have proxy groups for the people met five hundred years ago. In most places, the cosmopolitan populations will be very different – so we add another layer of diversity, the dynamics of populations over time, changed by successive migrations. Also, statistical methods are improving for the identification and dating of adaptation events, allowing us to investigate how differently adapted where the local populations to the diverse ecosystems across South America, Island Southeast Asia, Africa, and Iberia.
Most of all, we want close contact, as much as possible, with a few people in the various key locations. We want to understand their perceptions of ancestry, and if they are aware of the information that genetics can provide nowadays on individual and group ancestry. We will collect statements after we provide an ancestry report to some individuals. Ancestry is much more than genetics; it has important cultural and sociological aspects that will also be addressed in this project. Perhaps, images and art installations are better ways of explaining as complex a concept as ancestry. We will challenge artists across the Magellan route to express their perceptions of their own ancestry, after receiving the genetic test, and share their works with the general public.
We will have some ethical constraints, especially in direct contact with fragile population groups. Also, the Covid-19 pandemic keeps limiting extents in-person contact. These are challenges of the voyage that will be navigated around.
