2018 Outstanding Trainee Presentations in Anthropological Genetics Awards Announced

The Outstanding Trainee Presentations in Anthropological Genetics Awards are given for the best poster and podium presentations at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists annual meeting or the Human Biology Association annual meeting. In 2018, two outstanding graduate student scientists were recognized for their work during the 87th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, held in Austin, Texas. The winners received a $200 cash prize and a one-year subscription to Human Biology.

outstanding podium presentation by a graduate student: Sarah Phillips-Garcia

Ecoimmunology of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii): Does MHC genotype or phenotype predict occurrence of respiratory infection?

Sarah Phillips-Garcia is an evolutionary anthropologist and biologist from the University of New Mexico studying the ecoimmunology and life history of wild chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Her dissertation work is interdisciplinary and incorporates the fields of endocrinology, parasitology, immunology, and genetics, all within a framework of life history evolution. Ms. Phillips-Garcia's presentation at the 2018 American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting addressed the contribution of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes to the occurrence of respiratory disease over a 21-year period in the Kanyawara community of wild chimpanzees. Results from this study showed support for the heterozygote advantage hypothesis and outlined several MHC-B alleles contributing to both higher and lower occurrence of respiratory disease.

Ms. Phillips-Garcia's broader interests are to explore life-history trade-offs between reproduction and immune function in wild, female chimpanzees. Female apes bear a heavy energetic burden in the reproductive process, particularly during early phases of lactation. She is interested in understanding how this investment in reproduction impacts energy allocation to immune processes, potentially altering the short- and long-term health profiles of female chimpanzees. Ms. Phillips-Garcia is mentored by Dr. Melissa Emery Thompson at the

Human Biology is the official publication of the American Association of Anthropological Genetics (AAAG), an educational and scientific organization founded in 1994. AAAG aims to promote the study of anthropological genetics, as this field is broadly defined, and to facilitate communication and cooperation between individuals engaged in this field of research. To learn more about the AAAG or to become a member, please visit our website at www.anthgen.org.

University of New Mexico, with contributions from Dr. Emily Wroblewski at Washington University in St. Louis and Dr. Tony Goldberg at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. More information on her research can be found at www.sarahphillipsgarcia.com.

Ms. Phillips-Garcia would like to extend her gratitude to the AAAG for this award. She is a relatively new member of this organization, and she is overjoyed by the diversity of human and nonhuman primate genetics research that is represented by AAAG membership.

outstanding poster presentation by a graduate student: Mareike Janiak

Duplication and convergent evolution of the pancreatic ribonuclease gene (RNASE1) in a non-colobine primate, the mantled howler monkey (Alouatta palliate)

Mareike Janiak was first introduced to anthropological genetics by former AAAG president Dr. Deborah Bolnick during her final year as an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin. After starting her PhD studies at Rutgers University with a very different focus in mind (social behavior), Ms. Janiak's interests quickly changed, and she was drawn to questions of dietary adaptation and to using genetics/genomics as investigative tools.

Ms. Janiak's work presented at the AAPA meeting follows up research by Dr. Jianzhi Zhang, which found that the gene coding for pancreatic ribonuclease (RNASE1) was duplicated and had convergently evolved new roles in different foregut fermenters, presumably as an adaptation for digesting the products of microbial fermentation in the foregut. When she sequenced the howler monkey genome with Andy Burrell and Todd Disotell at New York University, Ms. Janiak looked for the RNASE1 gene to see if another folivorous primate without foregut fermentation might have similar adaptations. To her surprise, she found that RNASE1 was not just duplicated in howler monkeys, but the duplicated genes actually had amino acid changes that are convergent with those Zhang found in colobine...