Novel Genes Made Us Human

Here is an extremely novel approach to explaining the origin of genes unique to the human line. David Knowles and Aoife McLysaght, from the Smurfit Institute of Genetics in Dublin, have identified 3 genes that are present in the human genome but not present in the chimp. They appear to have been made active in humans from inactive sequences of DNA in chimps and a range of other primates. The researchers have determined that these genes are active in humans because they do produce protein but they have no information yet on what, exactly, these genes do. They do point out, however, that they have only filtered about 20% of the human genome for human-chimp comparison and that their research may yet realize some 18+ genes that have arisen from non-coding DNA in human evolution.