Southeast Asia is the major geographic source of East Asian and North Asian populations, a consortium of researchers, including four scientists from Academia Sinica, reported on December 10.

The study, published in the leading academic journal Science, traced the genetic origins of Asian populations in 73 Southeast Asian and East Asian populations. They concluded that genetic ancestry was highly correlated with ethnic and linguistic groups, there was a clear increase in genetic diversity from northern to southern latitudes, and that there was a single major inflow of human migration from Southeast Asia into other parts of Asia. These findings challenge the current predominant theory which presumes there had been multiple inflows of human migration along both southern and northern routes.
 
The group conducting the study was made up of over 90 scientists from the Human Genome Organisation’s (HUGO’s) Pan-Asian Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (PASNP) Consortium. It included scientists from over 30 top academic institutions throughout ten countries including China, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia. The four Taiwan scientists participating in the study were from the Institute of Biomedical Sciences (IBMS) and were led by Academician and Director of IBMS Yuan-Tsong Chen.  Chen stated,

"This study marks a milestone in collaboration among the geneticists from the ten Asian countries and paves the way to a better understanding of our origin.  In the future the consortium hopes to extend this study towards medical and health related issues.”

This genetic mapping of Asia may have important implications, especially in the further understanding of human migratory patterns in human history, and the study of genetics and diseases.

The HUGO, established in 1989 Geneva, is an international body of scientists involved in human genetic and genomic research. Single Nucleotide Polymorphism is a DNA sequence variation that occurs when a single nucleotide in the genome differs between members of a species. The Taiwan arm of the study was supported by the National Genotyping Center and the National Clinical Core for Genomic Medicine, two core facilities of the National Research Program for Genomic Medicine and the Multi-center Genetic Medicine Study, a project run by Academia Sinca.

The complete list of participants from Taiwan is: Dr. Yuan-Tsong Chen, Dr. Chien-Hsiun Chen, Dr. Jer-Yuarn Wu and Mr. Sheng-Feng Ho