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0:00
My name is Katherine Pollard.
I'm a Senior Investigator
at the Gladstone Institute
and a professor of human
genetics and biostatistics
at the University of
California, San Francisco.
Today, we're going to be talking
about human molecular evolution
since the human-chimpanzee
divergence.
0:17
My lab studies the genetic
basis for what makes us human.
From an evolutionary
perspective, this
is the same as asking what makes
us different from chimpanzees
and other apes.
Chimps are our closest living
relatives on the tree of life,
and we had a common ancestor
about 6 million years ago.
0:37
Despite the fact that humans
have often thought of ourselves
as particularly unique,
from many points of view,
we are just typical apes.
Even some traits, such as
tool making or counting,
that were previously thought
to be specific to humans,
have been observed in non-human
primates and other animals.
However, for every
similarity to chimpanzees,
there are also
interesting differences.
These include our
unique spoken language
and also our susceptibility to
a number of deadly diseases.
For example, primates
can all become infected
with immunodeficiency
viruses very similar to HIV,
yet the resulting AIDS disease
is much more severe in humans.
1:14
Humans and chimps also differ in
their leading causes of death.
Because of antibiotics and
other medical advances,
infectious disease is not
a top killer of humans or
our domestic animals, such as dogs.
Instead, we have very high rates of
cardiovascular disease and cancer.
This is partially due
to our living longer
into old age than
other primates as well
as diet, smoking, and other effects
of our environment or lifestyles.
However, chimpanzees and
gorillas in captivity
now receive excellent medical
care and live to be quite elderly,
but they still do not have
the prevalence or severity
of cardiovascular disease
and cancer seen in humans,
and this is true even when
the non-human primates are
sedentary and eat a high fat diet.
This suggests the genetics
also plays an important role
in explaining why humans
have such a different disease
profile from chimpanzees.
In the genomic era,
comparative medicine
now seeks to identify the genetic
risks that are unique to humans.
