Kenneth Kay Kidd is an American human geneticist and emeritus professor of genetics at

Yale University School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. The primary te ...

. He is known for his work on the role of genetics in disorders such as

manic depression Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...

and

schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdra ...

, on human genetic variation and its relationship to geography, and the

Out of Africa theory In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans, also called the "Out of Africa" theory (OOA), recent single-origin hypothesis (RSOH), replacement hypothesis, or recent African origin model (RAO), is the dominant model of the ...

of human evolution. He also helped discover the DRD4-7R gene that has been linked to exploratory behaviour. Kidd also did work on the forensic identification of individuals by single nucleotide polymorphisms and was a key figure in the 1990s

Human Genome Diversity Project The Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) was started by Stanford University's Morrison Institute in 1990s along with collaboration of scientists around the world. It is the result of many years of work by Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, one of the most ci ...

(HGDP), which indigenous populations rejected due to fear of exploitation of their genetic material, including for purposes other than medical research ("In the long history of destruction which has accompanied western colonization we have come to realize that the agenda of the non-indigenous forces has been to appropriate and manipulate the natural order for the purposes of profit, power, and control.").

Uyghur genetic material controversy

In 2019, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' alleged that Kidd's collected genetic material from

Uyghurs The Uyghurs; ; ; ; zh, s=, t=, p=Wéiwú'ěr, IPA: ( ), alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghur ...

was being used by "scientist's affiliated with China's police" in order to create a genetic database of Uyghurs in China. The piece alleged that Kidd had visited China regularly since 1981, and met with at least one figure within the

Ministry of Public Security (China) The Ministry of Public Security () is a government ministry of the People's Republic of China responsible for public and political security. It oversees more than 1.9 million of the country's law enforcement officers and as such the vast ma ...

. When contacted by ''The New York Times'', Kidd said to have no knowledge of any potential uses of genetic material for these purposes. He has since asked the Chinese to remove genetic material provided from his work but received no response.

References

External links

Faculty page
American geneticists Living people Yale School of Medicine faculty Population geneticists University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Year of birth missing (living people) {{Geneticist-stub