Kenneth Kay Kidd is an American human geneticist and emeritus professor of genetics at

Yale University School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the medical school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. It is the sixth-oldest m ...

. He is known for his work on the role of genetics in disorders such as

manic depression Bipolar disorder (BD), previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that each last from days to weeks, and in some cases months. If the elevated m ...

and

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

, on human genetic variation and its relationship to geography, and the

Out of Africa theory The recent African origin of modern humans or the "Out of Africa" theory (OOA) is the most widely accepted paleo-anthropological model of the geographic origin and early migration of anatomically modern humans (''Homo sapiens''). It follo ...

of human evolution. He also helped discover the DRD4-7R gene that has been linked to exploratory behaviour. Kidd also did work on the forensic identification of individuals by single nucleotide polymorphisms and was a key figure in the 1990s Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP), which indigenous populations rejected due to fear of exploitation of their genetic material, including for purposes other than medical research ("In the long history of destruction which has accompanied western colonization we have come to realize that the agenda of the non-indigenous forces has been to appropriate and manipulate the natural order for the purposes of profit, power, and control.").

Uyghur genetic material controversy

In 2019, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' alleged that Kidd's collected genetic material from

Uyghurs The Uyghurs,. alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central Asia and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as the ti ...

was being used by "scientists affiliated with China's police" in order to create a genetic database of Uyghurs in China. The piece alleged that Kidd had visited China regularly since 1981, and met with at least one figure within the

Ministry of Public Security (China) The Ministry of Public Security (MPS, zh , c = , p = Gōng'ānbù ) is the primary law enforcement agency of the China, People's Republic of China. It oversees more than 1.9 million of the country's law enforcement officers and as such the va ...

. When contacted by ''The New York Times'', Kidd claimed to have no knowledge of any potential uses of genetic material for these purposes. He has since asked the Chinese to remove genetic material provided from his work but received no response.

References

External links

Faculty page
American geneticists Living people Yale School of Medicine faculty Population geneticists University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Year of birth missing (living people) {{Geneticist-stub