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Less than 2% of genetic information studied comes from people of African descent. Now a new initiative is underway to collect genetic material from half a million African people. Anil Shanker, senior vice president of research and innovation at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, is behind the project, and he gave Newsday his insight. He said ''the first population of people to emigrate came from north east Africa, so the human diaspora that exists on earth today has some African ancestry, but we know little about their genetics. The reason there is so little genetics data is partly because of historical mistrust that led African people to not come forward to record their DNA and participate in studies and they also were not asked.'' With lack of data, genetic associations with disease are more difficult to identify, and he said it's not clear if treatments of certain diseases will work on Africans. The project is taking place at a new institute, the Diaspora Human Genomics Institute, and the aim is to complete the research in the next five years.

(A visitor in silhouette views a digital representation of the human genome at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. 2001 Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)