Interview Off the Beaten Path: An Interview with Spencer Wells Jane Gitschier pencer Wells has this geneticist’s Spencer Wells: Well, it was kind of dream job. He transits the globe, roundabout. I had done my PhD at S collecting DNA samples, Harvard, and like many geneticists in building collaborations, and the late ’80s and early ’90s, I was orchestrating what may be the most working on a model organism, and in extensive and fascinating project on this case, because my advisor was human origins yet, sponsored by one of [Richard] Lewontin, it was Drosophila. the most respected institutions in the I did basic molecular evolution stuff, US—The National Geographic Society. trying to detect selection in protein There, Wells holds the oxymoronically coding regions for an enzyme that was named post of ‘‘Explorer-in- important for flight. I looked at Residence’’ and runs the Genographic variation across species and within Project (www.nationalgeographic.com/ species and did detailed statistical genographic), whose mission is to analysis. I found no evidence of collect and genotype the Y and selection, but lots of evidence of mitochondrial chromosomes from population structure. And at the end of people the world over in order to track the day I wasn’t terribly interested in male and female lineages, respectively, the population structure of fruit flies, and thereby infer migratory patterns but I had always been interested in throughout human history. human history. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.0030044.g001 I was curious to learn how someone So I wanted to apply those methods Spencer Wells so young (he started working with to humans, and the technology in National Geographic when he was only genetics was getting to the point where 1996—how did you make those 33) could plunge into a project of this you could start to study human connections? magnitude. The answer is that Wells is a population genetics, because back in man of many facets, vision, and energy. the ’80s it had been quite difficult. The SW: Good question. We knew next to And he has a knack for creating the human genome was so big and you had nothing about Central Asia, which is opportunity. to clone everything. With PCR it got a why it was so fascinating. I sent off Happily, I had less difficulty pinning lot easier. letters to the US Embassies in all of the him down than I had anticipated. He Lewontin said, ‘‘You’ve got to work ‘‘stans’’—the newly independent suggested getting together at the with Luca Cavalli-Sforza,’’ out at stans—Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, American Society of Human Genetics Stanford. When I got to Stanford, one Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. meeting in New Orleans, where he was of the first things that Luca said to me I asked the US Embassies if they could scheduled to give a talk. We held our was that I needed to get out into the suggest any local scientists who might interview at the open-air Cafe´du field and meet some of the people that I be interested in working with me on Monde in the old French Quarter, was thinking of studying. Not only do collecting local samples and doing a where we were embraced by a warm we need the samples, but it’s also DNA study. breeze and the cacophony of traffic, important to hear their stories and to Most of the embassies came back and tourists, and two busking saxophonists. get to know them—to become an Our conversation ranged over two cups anthropologist, in effect. of cafe´ au lait; six continents; and a JG: Did Luca encourage everyone to do medley of ‘‘The Pink Panther,’’ ‘‘As Citation: Gitschier J (2007) Off the beaten path: An that? interview with Spencer Wells. PLoS Genet 3(3): e44. Time Goes By,’’ and two rounds of doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.0030044 ‘‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’’ SW: He did. I had always been Copyright: Ó 2007 Jane Gitschier. This is an open- Picture, if you will, an Indiana Jones fascinated by Central Asia and I put access article distributed under the terms of the type, passionately delving into ancient together my first short expedition there Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and mysteries, but in Wells’s case, for the summer of 1996. I spent five reproduction in any medium, provided the original sunburned, hatless, and minus the weeks in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and author and source are credited. whip. Kazakhstan collecting samples. Jane Gitschier is with the Department of Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of California San Jane Gitschier: Let’s talk about your JG: Wait a second. Just hopping on a Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of transition from academia to adventure. plane and going to Uzbekistan in America. E-mail: [email protected] PLoS Genetics | www.plosgenetics.org0341 March 2007 | Volume 3 | Issue 3 | e44 said, ‘‘No, we can’t help, we don’t know at the time. He said, ‘‘Nobody has I was just in Tajikistan a week and a anybody who would be interested in pictures of this part of the world. I’d half ago, and we were sampling all over this.’’ love to come with you if you wouldn’t the southern part of the country and But the University of Tashkent, the mind—I have nothing to do this asking people to name their capital of Uzbekistan, relayed it to the summer.’’ grandparents and great-grandparents Academy of Sciences. And eventually, So I said, ‘‘Yeah, sure, sounds like and so on. I could do that back to Ruslan Ruzibakiev, the director of the fun.’’ So the two of us set off to Central maybe to my great-grandparents. These Institute of Immunology, happened Asia knowing very little about it, people can do it back six, seven, eight upon it. He thought it sounded speaking very little Russian. generations. They’ve always lived in the fascinating, so he wrote back to me. JG: Is Russian the language of all those same place and beyond that they know That was the start of a great countries? even more about their history, but not relationship. necessarily their names. SW: It’s the lingua franca because all JG: What exactly did you suggest to So they have a sense, a clear idea of those countries were part of the Soviet him? where they came from, that something Union. is passed from generation that ties SW: I told him that we know very little When we got off the plane, Ruslan them to their ancestors. You explain to about this very important region of the picked us up with other members of the them that that thing is DNA and that it world. If you look at Eurasia, and you Institute. We went to his office—it was will tell us not only about the people think about people coming out of 8 o’clock in the morning—he gave us they can name but also people beyond Africa and populating the planet, this shots of vodka and said, ‘‘We have two that that they can’t name, and also region must have played a very variants: first variant is we rest today people on the other side of the world— important role—certainly the and work tomorrow, and the second me, people you’ve never met in Africa populating of Asia, but potentially the variant is work today. I think we’ll take or southeast Asia, and so on. populating of the Americas as well, and the second variant.’’ People tend to get really excited possibly India. But the very little we did So I was making buffers in the lab about that, I find. Generally we get a know about it suggested that it was and getting ready for the first part of very positive response. They want to unusual. It wasn’t just a mix of East and our expedition out of the capital two know more. They say, ‘‘I’ll give you the West. There might be a unique hours later. sample, but make sure you get the indigenous group of people who always JG: Who drew the blood? This always information back to me, and tell me lived there. seems like a daunting logistical what it’s all about.’’ I told him about the new DNA problem to me. markers, microsatellites, and SNPs, and JG: Do you get back to them? this thing called the Y chromosome we SW: I drew some of the blood, but we SW: Yes, but not necessarily every were working on at Stanford and how mostly worked with local phlebotomists, single person individually. Sometimes it’s starting to reveal some interesting nurses, and so on. I was taught by one of we do a press interview and it will be patterns. What if we collected samples the nurses there. broadcast into an area that we’ve and did some studies to try to figure JG: Did you have consent forms for all worked in, and we’ll talk about the out how these people fit into the world these people? group and what their DNA samples pattern? And he said, ‘‘Yeah, sounds have told us. amazing. I can set up all the details SW: We did. We mostly took oral locally. You deal with all the other consent but we did have people sign in JG: So you came back to Stanford with logistical stuff, getting yourself over most cases. We tried very hard to these bloods. Had you extracted DNA here and funding it, but I know the explain what the project was all about.