Nightline-The Secrets in Your DNA
Tracing Lineage With DNA
Genetic Testing Helps People Discover Ancestry, Dispels Notions of Genetic Purity
By MARTIN BASHIR
Dec. 4, 2007 —
“Where are you from?”
It’s one of the first questions we ask one another. But even though national identity has been used to divide people for generations, nationalities may be more closely connected than we ever imagined. Genetic science is beginning to create a new understanding of human ancestry.
Scott Woodward, chief scientific officer of Sorenson Genomics in Salt Lake City, is now giving people the chance to trace their lineage by using their DNA.
Formerly specializing in paternity testing, Sorenson spent $40 million building the largest DNA database in the country. Over the last seven years, it’s collected 100,000 samples of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, considered the purest form of genetic inheritance because it barely changes through the generations.
New samples are continually being added to the database, which was conceived by 86-year-old entrepreneur James LeVoy Sorenson. He doesn’t give interviews, but “Nightline” spoke with his son James Lee who is in charge of the company.
