Neil Hanchard is a Jamaican physician and scientist who is clinical investigator in the

National Human Genome Research Institute The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) is an institute of the National Institutes of Health, located in Bethesda, Maryland. NHGRI began as the Office of Human Genome Research in The Office of the Director in 1988. This Office transi ...

(NHGRI), where he leads the Childhood Complex Disease Genomics section. Prior to joining NHGRI, he was an associate professor of molecular and human

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar work ...

at the

Baylor College of Medicine Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a medical school and research center in Houston, Texas, within the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical center. BCM is composed of four academic components: the School of Medicine, the Graduate S ...

. He is a fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, . Hanchard's research focuses on the genetics of childhood disease, with an emphasis on diseases impacting global health.

Early life and education

Hanchard grew up in

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispa ...

. In 1999, he received a

Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery ( la, Medicinae Baccalaureus, Baccalaureus Chirurgiae; abbreviated most commonly MBBS), is the primary medical degree awarded by medical schools in countries that follow the tradition of the United K ...

degree from the

University of the West Indies The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the ...

Kingston, Jamaica Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley Inte ...

. He then studied at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

as a

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

. He received a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

degree from Oxford in 2004, and completed a residency in

pediatrics Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...

at the

Mayo Clinic The Mayo Clinic () is a nonprofit American academic medical center focused on integrated health care, education, and research. It employs over 4,500 physicians and scientists, along with another 58,400 administrative and allied health staf ...

in 2009. Subsequently, he completed a clinical fellowship in

clinical genetics Medical genetics is the branch tics in that human genetics is a field of scientific research that may or may not apply to medicine, while medical genetics refers to the application of genetics to medical care. For example, research on the caus ...

at the Baylor College of Medicine.

Research

Hanchard's research focuses on genetic factors that can lead children to manifest especially severe symptoms of

malnutrition Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues ...

, genomics of disease progression in children with HIV and

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, ...

, and genetic factors that contribute to

comorbidities In medicine, comorbidity - from Latin morbus ("sickness"), co ("together"), -ity (as if - several sicknesses together) - is the presence of one or more additional conditions often co-occurring (that is, concomitant or concurrent) with a primary ...

sickle cell disease Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a group of blood disorders typically inherited from a person's parents. The most common type is known as sickle cell anaemia. It results in an abnormality in the oxygen-carrying protein haemoglobin found in red b ...

. He is a member of the

Undiagnosed Diseases Network The Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN) is a research study that is funded by the National Institutes of Health Common Fund. Its purpose is to bring together clinical and research experts from across the United States to solve the most challenging me ...

, and is interested in identifying molecular diagnoses for children with uncommon genetic disease symptoms. In collaboration with the

Human Heredity and Health in Africa Human Heredity and Health in Africa, or H3Africa, is an initiative to study the genomics and medical genetics of African people. Its goals are to build the continent's research infrastructure, train researchers and clinicians, and to study questi ...

(H3Africa) consortium, he was a senior author on a publication surveying human genetic diversity in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. The study was published in and featured on the cover of ''Nature'', which described the work as "a milestone in genomics research." In this work, they sequenced the complete genomes of 426 African individuals who belonged to 50 distinct

ethnolinguistic group An ethnolinguistic group (or ethno-linguistic group) is a group that is unified by both a common ethnicity and language. Most ethnic groups share a first language. However, "ethnolinguistic" is often used to emphasise that language is a major ...

s, including individuals from populations that had never previously been sequenced. The study revealed previously unknown historical

human migration Human migration is the movement of people from one place to another with intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily, at a new location (geographic region). The movement often occurs over long distances and from one country to another (ex ...

patterns, for example leading to insight into the history of the

Berom people The Berom (sometimes also spelt as Birom) is the largest autochthonous ethnic group in Plateau State, central Nigeria. Covering about four local government areas, which include Jos North, Jos South, Barkin Ladi (Gwol) and Riyom, Berom are als ...

of Nigeria. It identified more than 3 million genetic variants that had not been previously observed, which could contribute to making genetic tests more accurate for people with African ancestry. He has coauthored more than 70

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

ed articles. His papers have appeared in ''Nature'', ''Science'', and the ''

American Journal of Human Genetics The ''American Journal of Human Genetics'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of human genetics. It was established in 1948 by the American Society of Human Genetics and covers all aspects of heredity in humans, including t ...

''.

Personal life

Hanchard is married with children.

Selected publications

* Choudhury, A., Aron, S., Botigué, L.R. ''et al.'
High-depth African genomes inform human migration and health.
''Nature'' 586, 741–748 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2859-7 * Schulze, K.V., Bhatt, A., Azamian, M.S. ''et al.'
Aberrant DNA methylation as a diagnostic biomarker of diabetic embryopathy.
''Genet Med'' 21, 2453–2461 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41436-019-0516-z * Schulze, K.V., Swaminathan, S., Howell, S. ''et al.'
Edematous severe acute malnutrition is characterized by hypomethylation of DNA.
''Nat Commun'' 10, 5791 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13433-6 * Retshabile, G, Mlotshwa, B.C.,Williams, L ''et al.'
Whole-Exome Sequencing Reveals Uncaptured Variation and Distinct Ancestry in the Southern African Population of Botswana.
''Am J Hum Genet.'' 102 (5), 731-743 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2018.03.010 * Hanchard NA, Swaminathan S, Bucasas K ''et al.'
A genome-wide association study of congenital cardiovascular left-sided lesions shows association with a locus on chromosome 20
''Hum Mol Genet.'' 25 (11), 2331-2341 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddw071 * Hanchard NA, Rockett KA, Spencer C, ''et al.'
Screening for recently selected alleles by analysis of human haplotype similarity.
''Am J Hum Genet.'' 78 (1), 153-9 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1086/499252

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanchard, Neil American geneticists Alumni of the University of Oxford Jamaican Rhodes Scholars University of the West Indies alumni American people of Jamaican descent American pediatricians Jamaican scientists Jamaican paediatricians Living people Year of birth missing (living people)