Understanding the Human Genetics and Evolution: High School Biology

Abstract

In the last decade, advances in technologies for nucleic acid analysis successfully reduced costs and times required for human genome sequencing. As the full picture of our genome has emerged, surprising findings on human biology and evolution have been accumulated. Moreover, the application of genome diversity information is going to be launched especially in the fields of medicine. However, in Japan, contents of human genetics are still scarce in the secondary education. In the response to the current situation, a recommendation for the enrichment of human genetics education was made by academic societies including the Anthropological Societies of Nippon. Anthropology has long history of researches in the genetic basis of non-disease traits and evolution of humans and therefore will play an important role in the enrichment of human genetics education. The present paper introduces topics of anthropology that can be used in the education programs of human genetics.