Gregg Bonner: DNA and Genealogy
Gregg Bonner's
Interest in DNA and Genealogy
(now with 100% more autosomal DNA analysis!)
About the RootsWeb mtDNA-L list administrator, Gregg Bonner

If you trace the origin of mtDNA analysis historically, you will inevitably find your way back to the original item. The first full mtDNA sequence ever produced (and incidentally, the first full genome ever sequenced) was reported in 1981. If you search for this original article, then you will find the PubMed entry for it, which is represented something like this:

Notice that this article in the journal Nature, like so many other revolutionary articles, lists the authors in alphabetical order. Thus it is difficult for the uninitiated to appreciate the contributions made by each of the authors. But just to give some idea of the status of the authors listed, here are some things to keep in mind:

1. Sanger F - This is Fred Sanger, one of only three people ever awarded the Nobel Prize TWICE for scientific contributions.
2. Coulson AR - This is Alan Coulson, who, among other things, was collaborating scientist on the project that won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology.
3. Staden R - This is Rodger Staden. If you've ever downloaded DNA sequencing utilities, you'll recognize 'the Staden Package'. It's named for him.
4. Roe BA -

Well...you get the idea. And this is where I come in. In the 1980s, I had just begun as a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma. While teaching freshman chemistry lab and recitation, and taking graduate courses in the department, I also began sequencing DNA. This was in the lab of Dr. Bruce A. Roe (#4 above, the 9th listed author on the revolutionary mtDNA sequencing paper). This was a different time, when students and professors smoked cigarettes together in the lab, mouth-pipetted radioactive phosphorus, and isolated mRNA as part of DNA sequencing.

My first personal project was part of a grant that Bruce and I had just written, where we proposed to sequence the mtDNA of various species as a cladistics approach. My first target was the turtle. While ironing out the difficulties in that, something happened to stop my mtDNA sequencing activities. Some would say it was a rather larger opportunity - it was the Human Genome Project.

I was also part of a larger team that was sequencing human nuclear DNA while I was pursuing my own individual project of sequencing mtDNA. At that time we were sequencing things related to "the Philadelphia chromosome". You can see my involvement in the lab by checking out the University of Oklahoma GENOME site under the vita of my research advisor:

Methods to Sequence Cloned Human Genomic DNA. ASBMB, Abs. #3445 (1990)
(link opens new browser window)

Of course you'll have to hunt for my name in that sea of text - Dr. Roe's vita is impressive, as you may imagine.

While most of the earlier grants funded theoreticians and the like, our lab was tapped to begin the actual sequencing...here's some money, get going! Well, I was on board for sequencing mtDNA of length in the thousands of base pairs, but the 3 billion number was something else. Not wanting to be reduced to simply a DNA sequencing machine with arms and legs (I am a scientist, after all), I left my turtles behind and left with my Masters in Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Gregg Bonner
(circa 1993)
On Mt. Lemmon, near Tucson, Arizona

Fast forward a few years, and I am just graduating with my Doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Arizona. I worked in the laboratory of Regent's Professor Dr. Victor Hruby, who had a joint appointment in Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Anyone who has interest in this can read my riveting account of performing double quantum filtered 2-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (2-D DQF-NMR) on peptides dissolved in "heavy" acetic acid (among other things). Just order up your very own copy from University Microforms International, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI (be sure to order UMI Number: 9729478).

I continued to publish findings from my doctoral work in biochemistry even after I had moved to Ann Arbor. Although there are other works that will doubtless be published in these regards in the future in fits and starts, the last one was in 2004, some 7+ years after I defended my dissertation. If you are interested, then you can read about that here:

Another publication from the University of Arizona
(link will open a new browser window).

My focus changed from the genes (the DNA sequencing work I did for my masters in chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma) to the other end of the spectrum...the ligands for the products of those genes (notably the POMC gene). Then, for my post-doctoral position (in the lab of Dr. Huda Akil) at the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute at the University of Michigan Medical Center, I moved to the center, analyzing the products of the genes themselves.

Dr. Gregg Bonner
(circa 1997)
University of Michigan Medical Center
Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute
(MBNI)

In both my doctoral work and my post-doctoral work, I was engaged in experimentation related to molecular evolution. But these times, it was not the mtDNA that related species, or individuals within a population, but rather it was the study of molecules that were related to each other prior to the split between related species. I was studying related receptors, and changing the DNA so that one receptor would more closely resemble its 'cousin' receptor, or otherwise better resemble its analogue in another species.

Something else happened while I was doing that -- two somethings, actually. The first is that I decided to compile my pedigree from information that had been handed to me. My step-mother had done a lot of genealogical research, and my dad I suppose contributed to that somewhat. In any case, they gave me a lot of information on my paternal family. At the same time, my mother was writing a family newsletter, and would include items from cousins, and show a little tree so that people would know how the author was related to them. I compiled what I had, and generated my then-known pedigree. I had just downloaded Brother's Keeper genealogy shareware for the task, and it would produce a 6-generation chart on one sheet of paper. My intent was to complete my 6-generation chart, and be done. So that was the first thing. The second thing is the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints came online with their website, with all this information free! I began searching, and finding some line waaaay far back (erroneously, as many of them turned out). I met a lot of "online cousins". I was still trying to fill in my 6-generations pedigree. There were two holes, and one was a two-generation hole. I was missing 5 ancestors. I searched online. In short, I got hooked on genealogy.

By the way, the first post I made to a RootsWeb list about mtDNA (that I can find) was posted 26 March 2000, already now over a dozen years ago! If you are interested you can read that post from the link below. I wrote that while working for NIDA in labs at the University of Michigan Medical Center, which you will note from the email address that I was using way back then:

https://lists.rootsweb.com/hyperkitty/th/read/cotton/2000-03/0954121408
(link opens a new browser window)

So you see, my interest in mtDNA sequencing predated my interest in genealogy in general by over a decade. I did, by the way, finally fill in my 6-generation chart, and like a true genealogy junky, am now working on a 7-generations chart. It took me about 7 years to fill the first one. Right now I am two maiden names away from filling to 7 generations. However, I am much more cynical about genealogy without sources, and so I have turned back to my DNA roots, where it is possible to do. My first project was the Lentz Project, and our first testee was FTDNA Kit# 1937 (now over a decade later, in its own right; my admin page says the kit was returned to FTDNA on New Year's Eve 2001!), my cousin, the late Don Lance. This family was the first of those two holes that I plugged in the 6-generation chart. It is my dad's mom's dad's mom's dad's patriline, but I have these Lance and Lentz cousins to represent me.

I started writing posts online suggesting the utility of mtDNA sequencing for genealogy about the same time, approximately 1999. I had my own Y-chromosome tested, and also did the HVR1 mtDNA sequence. I am FTDNA Kit# 7605.

So now I have come full circle with the mtDNA. I am back to where I was in the 1980s, interested in the sequencing and analysis of mtDNA. Thus, I created the mtDNA-L list at RootsWeb, with the intent of having like-minded folks talk about how mtDNA can, could, and did help them with their specific genealogical questions. It is a marriage of my professional expertise and my hobby. I was quite surprised that no list had been created for the purpose.

This just underscores how under-utilized the technique is. So if you are reading this, I am happy to have you as an audience. I hope that you will have your mtDNA sequenced (and/or the mtDNA of your cousins, as a proxy for you), and post your question and/or comments to the list. I hope that this list will grow with time, in a manner similar to that which I have experienced with my Y-DNA projects, such as Lentz, Bonner, Newton, and others.

And now there is a new game in town
(MicroArray technology advances genealogical research)

It is rather amazing how genetic genealogy seems to follow my academic career...behind it about 10 years at each step! I first sequenced mtDNA in the late 1980s, and mtDNA sequencing as part of genealogical research first became widely available in the late 1990s. Now, in the late 2000s and early 2010s, we have the MicroArray techniques that most genetic genealogist know as the Family Finder test (offered by FTDNA) and the Relative Finder test (offered by 23andMe). These tests are performed on MicroArray platforms that are premade for the purpose (and other purposes) by Affymetrix and Illumina.

It was nearly 10 years prior to this development that I was part of the MicroArray team at the University of Michigan. Unlike the premade "gene chips" made by Affymetrix and others, I was engaged in the much more sophisticated art of creating my own custom gene chips. That is to say, I took each individual gene clone from microtiter plates and made my own custom-printed MicroArrays (gene chips), as part of my post-doctoral research project.

Dr. Gregg Bonner
(circa 2003)
From the UMich Medical MicroArray website:
Gregg Bonner (microarray printer) - back row in green shirt
Fan Meng (director) - back row, far right
The "Gridder":
It prints the genetic material onto specialized microscope slides using micro-quills
University of Michigan Medical Center
MicroArray Facility Group
(MBNI/Kresge)

The experience in producing custom-printed gene chips was interesting, and was especially pleasurable because I was under the directorship of the fine scientist Dr. Fan Meng. I knew Fan from earlier days, when we were both in the business of making mutants and cloning. Fan was even the co-author of one of the papers I wrote that related to the molecular evolution of μOR and δOR:

Mutant-based receptor molecular evolution analyses
(link opens a new browser window)

I doubt that Fan and the others working in the MicroArray group could have dreamed that the technology that we were pioneering in those days would, in the future, become a stalwart in the arsenal of genetic genealogy! I know that I didn't see that coming. This is a departure from the case with mtDNA, where I saw that coming the whole time.

And now nearly a decade on from my retirement from the lab, my old lab continues on, still in a parallel course with my genealogy. While I am deriving SNP profiles of my long-dead ancestors from autosomal DNA testing of cousins by FTDNA and 23andme and AncestryDNA, the lab is putting out its - naturally - more medically-oriented research articles, such as:

Coding SNPs included in exon arrays for the study of psychiatric disorders

I suppose my hobby and their research will drift apart enough to be unrecognizable as related eventually. Did I say drift? I guess I should have said EVOLVE!

Gregg Bonner

Last update: 24 August 2014