[KS] Re: KOREAN GENETICS PROJECT @ COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

[michael Robinson]

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__________________________________________

Dr. Terwilliger:

There are a number of web-sites organized around Korean American adoptees
and search issues.  I do not have the addresses but I'm sure people on our
list could provide you with contacts.  One of the largest groups of adoptees
historically can be found in the U.S. midwest and depending on era, now the
South and any large urban area.  Having left the West coast to teach at
Indiana, I am now running into Korean adoptees.  We have no student
association of adoptees, but the University of Wisconsin does.  Again, I'm
unfortunately without the specific contacts.  I think this is an important
projet and I urge our list members to help.

Mike Robinson
Indiana University

----- Original Message -----
From: Henny Savenije <adam&eve at henny-savenije.demon.nl>
To: korean-studies at mailbase.ac.uk <korean-studies at iic.edu>
Cc: Moo-Young Han <myhan at phy.duke.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2000 7:10 PM
Subject: KOREAN GENETICS PROJECT @ COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY


> REPLY sends your message to the whole list
> __________________________________________
>
> KOREAN GENETICS PROJECT @ COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
> Hello,
> I am an assistant professor at Columbia University, who is one of the
> co-organizers of the "Hanminjok Genome Project", an effort to study the
> health of the Korean diaspora, looking jointly at genetic and
environmental
> factors and their impact on quantitative traits underlying general health.
> At present we are focusing on families of ethnic Koreans in the US, South
> Korea, and the former Soviet Union (Kazakhstan and Sakhalin). One
component
> of the project is also to look at the same traits in populations of Korean
> adoptees living in Northern Europe - I
> have a visiting position in Sweden, and we are preparing to do an
> epidemiological survey based on the computerized health and family records
> they have in the Nordic countries, where there are about 8500 adoptees.
>
> Last month, I visited Seoul, and met with Lee Jong-Chul at the Jae-wae
> dong-po jae-dan (Oversease Koreans Foundation), and he recommended that I
> contact your organization for further information about the population of
> adult adoptees in the USA (Our initial survey in each of the populations
is
> based on ascertainment of individuals between 25 and 30 years old, from
> which we hope to expand to look at family members - in the case of
adoptees
> we would hope to be able to look at their nonbiological relatives, because
> of the focus on gene-environment interaction in most of the variables we
> are planning to study.
>
> We think the results of this project (which is being planned as a long
term
> commitment to study health of the Korean community) will be of great
> importance in several ways. First, because there have been so few studies
> done of genetic epidemiology in Korean people (you know even in Korea,
they
> are doing "genetic testing" based on mutations identified in European
> populations, without bothering to test the effect in Korean samples - when
> we know that the health risk of most variants is extremely variable from
> population to population), second because our focus is on gene-environment
> interaction, we are looking at a more gestalt view of the etiology of
> disease, not deluding ourselves into thinking that anyone ends up a
certain
> way purely as a result of either genes or environment - this is probably
> something eminently clear to Korean adoptees, but nevertheless scientists
> seem to not want to acknowledge this fact, because it makes it difficult
to
> find anything without careful attention to study design...
>
> Anyway, that is enough rambling, but the point of this all is that we are
> interested in working with the adopted Korean community in developing this
> project, as an important but under-emphasized part of the Korean diaspora.
> If you have any information that might help us, we would be grateful, and
> if there is someone in your organization who might be interested to meet
> with us sometime and discuss the project, and possibly serve as a
> consultant, we would be interested to explore the opportunities to work
> with your community.
>
> Thank you very much for your help.
> Thanks again!
> Best wishes,
>
> Joseph D. Terwilliger, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor (Statistical Genetics)
> Columbia University
> Columbia Genome Center
> 1150 St. Nicholas Ave, Room 520C
> New York, NY 10032
> -----------------------------
> Henny  (Lee Hae Kang)
>
> Feel free to visit
> http://www.henny-savenije.demon.nl
> and feel the thrill of Hamel discovering Korea (1653-1666)
> In Korean
> http://www.henny-savenije.demon.nl/indexk2.htm
>