ShareThisTUCSON, Ariz. -- Genetic technology developed to identify the remains of those killed in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, will be enhanced in a University of Arizona genomics laboratory to solve a more complex puzzle - identification of families separated for generations after the Holocaust. In addition to possibly reuniting families, the DNA Shoah Project will collect a database that will aid identification of remains yet to be discovered and will develop forensic tools for use in other acts of genocide. It's not possible today to match relatives three generations apart, but that doesn't deter Arizona researchers, who say they'll solve that puzzle once they collect the data. In the meantime, the DNA Shoah Project is racing to spread the word to Holocaust survivors, whose numbers dwindle by the day. Holocaust survivor Bill Kugelman, 83, a Tucson, Ariz., resident, said he intends to give a simple oral swab sample of his DNA to the project, though he expects no benefit from it. Kugelman, a survivor of three Nazi concentration camps, lost most of the European branch of his family in the Holocaust. "All of the family I have, I have," said Kugelman. "Whoever is gone, is gone." Matches of living relatives are a long shot, said Matt Kaplan, research director for the DNA Shoah Project, but he's confident some will be made and says the project will have many other benefits. In addition, it represents an intriguing scientific puzzle for Kaplan and the lab he runs in the University of Arizona's Bio5 Institute. He calls the technology developed for remains testing at Ground Zero "high quality work" but says "it was easy. It matched you to you. We're trying to do this for the Holocaust - 6,000 people a day killed, 9 million overall." In addition to the numbers, the passage of time makes the task more difficult. "Your DNA is a shuffled deck of cards you get from your mom and your dad, he said" With each succeeding generation, that shuffling makes identification of similarities more difficult. Most of our DNA is identical, said Kaplan. "That's what makes a wildebeest a wildebeest. Or a human being a human being." What the computers are looking for are those random mutations that not only identify "you as you," but you as the son or daughter of your particular parents. That gets tougher with each successive generation because you're losing half of the original material each time your DNA deck is shuffled. "The more markers we can identify, the deeper in time we're going to be able to go back," said Kaplan. The project, an effort of the UA's Human Origins Genotyping Laboratory, is also creating an educational component that will allow the story of the Holocaust to be taught in scientific curricula. Kaplan says he'll need a fairly large group of DNA, at least 10,000 samples, to begin looking for markers and matches. The first step for the DNA Shoah Project is not testing, but collecting samples. Holocaust survivors, the first target of the campaign, are dying. "It's a numbers game," said Lynn Davis, information specialist for the project. "We need to get around the world and build the biggest database we can to make it possible." Right now, the DNA Shoah Project has fewer than 1,000 participants. Its outreach is going first to Jewish congregations and Holocaust survivors groups. Next, said Syd Mandelbaum, the project's founder, they'll concentrate on second- and third-generation descendants of those orphaned, killed or displaced. E-mail Tom Beal at tbeal(at)azstarnet.com(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Lost families of Holocaust may be tracked in DNA lab
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