Interviewee: Svante Paabo.
Evolutionary geneticist Svante Paabo talks about the possible outcomes of human and chimp gene comparisons.
(DNAi Location: Applications > Human origins > Comparisons > DNA > Future comparison )
Transcript:
Obviously what we and many people are interested in for the next two years is to compare on the more genome scale, all over the genome, the chimpanzee genome to the human genome to find the genes, the perhaps small number of genes that actually differ, such as FOXP2 does, between humans and chimpanzees. To find the genes that have been specifically, under selection in humans, have gotten some new function in human that was advantageous, and maybe determine the train order of them to see which was selected earlier, and later, and then we would really sort of be able to make a sort of schedule for these selective sweeps that was involved in making us human.
There are only 50 human genes that have no homolog in chimps. Differences between the two species are, therefore, due more to changes in gene regulation.