Erika Hagelberg

Erika Hagelberg is a British Evolutionary geneticist and Professor of Biosciences at the University of Oslo. She works on ancient DNA and pioneered a means to extract DNA from bones. Her research has applications in evolutionary biology and forensic science.

Erika Hagelberg
Alma materUniversity of London
University of Cambridge
Known forAncient DNA
Pacific genetics
Forensic identification
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Oslo
University of Otago
John Radcliffe Hospital

Education and early career

At the age of 13, Hagelberg's father escaped from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom on the Kindertransport in 1939.[1] Hagelberg studied biochemistry at the University of London and earned her bachelor's degree in 1977. She moved to the University of Cambridge for her doctoral studies, earning her PhD in 1983.[2] Traditionally, DNA could only be found in soft tissues, but Hagelberg developed techniques to recover small quantities of DNA from bone. Once the DNA has been extracted, it is possible to use the polymerase chain reaction to determine the sequence of amino acids.[3]

Research

Hagelberg works in the analysis of ancient DNA from archaeological bones.[4] She joined the University of Oxford in 1987, where she worked at the John Radcliffe Hospital alongside Bryan Sykes and Robert E. M. Hedges.[5] At Oxford Hagelberg collaborated with Alec Jeffreys on the applications of bone DNA in forensic science.[2] Jeffreys once described her as being able to “get DNA out of a stone, just about,".[6] Jeffreys and Hagelberg worked on single tandem repeat typing. Her early work included the analysis of bones from the Mary Rose.[7] Hagelberg identified pig DNA in a leg bone from the food stores in the Mary Rose.[3]

Jeffreys and Hagelberg demonstrated the DNA analysis could be used to identify the skeletal remains of a murder victim.[8] Unfortunately, the body had been in the ground for so long that it had disintegrated.[9] They could not use conventional DNA fingerprinting to analyse the DNA, and had to develop more sophisticated techniques.[9] In the 1990s she was one of the first people to use bone DNA analysis for forensic identification.[10] Hagelberg's DNA extraction technique was used to identify bones found in Brazil that were believed to belong to Josef Mengele.[11] With Jeffreys, Hagelberg extracted DNA from a skeleton that had been buried for several years, and compared it with that of Mengele's family members.[9] Their discovery closed a case of war crime that had stayed open for half a century.[12] She also participated in the identification of remains of the Romanov family. This involved the analysis of nine skeletons, including those of the putative Tsarina and three of her daughters, and comparing their DNA to that of living descendants.[13] She has also used mitochondrial DNA to study the migration of human populations.[10] She has also extracted DNA from mammoth bones.[14]

In 1998 Hagelberg left Cambridge and joined the University of Otago in New Zealand. Here continued her research on human migrations in the Pacific Islands, by examining mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms in Polynesian and Melanesian bones to resolve conflicting opinions on the migratory patterns.[15][16] She also investigated the genetic origins of the people of the Andaman Islands. She found that the Andamanese are genetically more similar to Asian as opposed to African populations, predicting they are descendants of the paleolithic colonies in Southeast Asia.[17] Hagelberg has also written on the evolution of language, and how social complexity is related to brain size.[18] She is interested in how reliable mitochondrial DNA is in studies of human evolution and phylogenetics.[19][20]

In 2002 Hagelberg joined the University of Oslo.[21][22] Hagelberg investigates how definitions of biological race are used by evolutionary biologists.[23] Her work has been covered in The Guardian, The New York Times.[24][25]

She has contributed to several books, including the Oxford Companion to Archaeology and Life and Death in Asia Minor in Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Times: Studies in Archaeology and Bioarchaeology.[26][27] She edited a themed issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society on Ancient DNA.[2]

Bibliography

Books
  • Life and Death in Asia Minor in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Times: Studies in Archaeology and Bioarchaeology, edited by J. Rasmus Brandt, Erika Hagelberg, Gro Bjørnstad, and Sven Ahrens (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2017)

Journal articles and book chapters
  • Gro Bjørnstad, Erika Hagelberg, 'Analysis of DNA in skeletal material from Hierapolis', Life and Death in Asia Minor from Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Times edited by J. Rasmus Brandt, Erika Hagelberg, Gro Bjørnstad, and Sven Ahrens (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2017) pp. 219–27
  • J. R. Brandt, S. Ahrens, C. C. Wenn, E. Hagelberg, G. Bjørnstad and others, 'Liv og død i Hierapolis: Norske utgravninger i en hellenistisk-romersk-bysantinisk by i Lilleasia', Viking (Norsk archeologisk årbok) 79 (2016) pp. 193–220
  • Erika Hagelberg, 'Genetic affinities of the Rapanui', Skeletal Biology of the Ancient Rapa Nui, edited by G.W. Gill and V. Stefan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016) pp. 182–201
  • J. M. B. Motti, E. Hagelberg, J. Lindo, R. Malhi, C. M. Bravi, R. A. Guichón, 'Primer genoma mitochondrial en restos humanos de la costa de Santa Cruz, Argentina', Magallania (Chile) 43 (2015) pp. 119–31
  • Chunxiang Li, Chang Ning, Erika Hagelberg, Hongjie Li, Yongbin Zhao, Wenying Li, Idelisi Abuduresule, Hong Zhu, Hui Zhou, 'Analysis of ancient human mitochondrial DNA from the Xiaohe cemetery: Insights into prehistoric population movements in the Tarim Basin, China', BMC Genetics (2015)
  • Erika Hagelberg, Michael Hofreiter, and Christine Keyser, 'Ancient DNA: the First Three Decades', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2015) pp. 1–6 https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0371
  • Erika Hagelberg et al., 'A Genetic Perspective on the Origins and Dispersal of the Austronesians: Mitochondrial DNA Variation from Madagascar to Easter Island', Past Human Migrations in East Asia: Matching Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics, edited by Alicia Sanchez-Mazas et al. (London: Routledge, 2008)

References
  1. "Is there such a thing as a Jewish genome? A lecture by Professor Erika Hagelberg | H-Announce | H-Net". networks.h-net.org. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  2. "Ancient DNA: the first three decades | Royal Society". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
  3. Browne, Malcolm W. (1991-06-25). "Scientists Study Ancient DNA for Glimpses of Past Worlds". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  4. Hagelberg, E.; Clegg, J. B. (1991-04-22). "Isolation and characterization of DNA from archaeological bone". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 244 (1309): 45–50. Bibcode:1991RSPSB.244...45H. doi:10.1098/rspb.1991.0049. ISSN 1471-2954. PMID 1677195. S2CID 23859039.
  5. Hagelberg, Erika; Sykes, Bryan; Hedges, Robert (1989). "Ancient bone DNA amplified". Nature. 342 (6249): 485. Bibcode:1989Natur.342..485H. doi:10.1038/342485a0. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 2586623. S2CID 13434992.
  6. Zagorski, Nick (2006-06-13). "Profile of Alec J. Jeffreys". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103 (24): 8918–8920. Bibcode:2006PNAS..103.8918Z. doi:10.1073/pnas.0603953103. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 1482540. PMID 16754883.
  7. "Erika Hagelberg - Analysis of ancient bone DNA from the wreck of Mary Rose, the flagship of Henry VIII - EMBL PhD Student Symposium". phdsymposium.embl.org. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  8. Jeffreys, Alec J.; Gray, Ian C.; Hagelberg, Erika (August 1991). "Identification of the skeletal remains of a murder victim by DNA analysis". Nature. 352 (6334): 427–429. Bibcode:1991Natur.352..427H. doi:10.1038/352427a0. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 1861721. S2CID 4263579.
  9. "Jeffreys, Alec John | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  10. "Researchers". From racial typology to DNA sequencing. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  11. Jeffreys, A. J.; Allen, M. J.; Hagelberg, E.; Sonnberg, A. (1992). "Identification of the skeletal remains of Josef Mengele by DNA analysis". Forensic Science International. 56 (1): 65–76. doi:10.1016/0379-0738(92)90148-P. ISSN 0379-0738. PMID 1398379.
  12. Jobling, Mark A. (2013-11-18). "Curiosity in the genes: the DNA fingerprinting story". Investigative Genetics. 4 (1): 20. doi:10.1186/2041-2223-4-20. ISSN 2041-2223. PMC 3831598. PMID 24245602.
  13. Sullivan, Kevin; Hagelberg, Erika; Evett, Ian; Tully, Gillian; Benson, Nicola; Piercy, Romelle; Kimpton, Colin; Ivanov, Pavel L.; Gill, Peter (February 1994). "Identification of the remains of the Romanov family by DNA analysis". Nature Genetics. 6 (2): 130–135. doi:10.1038/ng0294-130. ISSN 1546-1718. PMID 8162066. S2CID 33557869.
  14. Lister, Adrian M.; Baryshnikov, Gennady F.; Andrei V. Sher; Cook, Charles E.; Thomas, Mark G.; Hagelberg, Erika (August 1994). "DNA from ancient mammoth bones". Nature. 370 (6488): 333–334. Bibcode:1994Natur.370R.333H. doi:10.1038/370333b0. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 8047136. S2CID 8694387.
  15. Ben-Ari, Elia T. (1999-02-01). "Molecular biographies: Anthropological geneticists are using the genome to decode human history". BioScience. 49 (2): 98–103. doi:10.2307/1313533. ISSN 0006-3568. JSTOR 1313533.
  16. Philipkoski, Kristen (2002-12-09). "Genes Reveal Andamanese Origins". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  17. Thangaraj, Kumarasamy; Singh, Lalji; Reddy, Alla G.; Rao, V.Raghavendra; Sehgal, Subhash C.; Underhill, Peter A.; Pierson, Melanie; Frame, Ian G.; Hagelberg, Erika (2003). "Genetic Affinities of the Andaman Islanders, a Vanishing Human Population". Current Biology. 13 (2): 86–93. doi:10.1016/s0960-9822(02)01336-2. ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 12546781. S2CID 12155496.
  18. Hagelberg, Erika. "The evolution of language". la.202.21hag. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  19. Hagelberg, E.; Goldman, N.; Lió, P.; Whelan, S.; Schiefenhövel, W.; Clegg, J. B.; Bowden, D. K. (1999-03-07). "Evidence for mitochondrial DNA recombination in a human population of island Melanesia". Proceedings. Biological Sciences. 266 (1418): 485–492. doi:10.1098/rspb.1999.0663. ISSN 0962-8452. PMC 1689791. PMID 10189712.
  20. Lalueza‐Fox, Carles; Bertranpetit, Jaume; Alcover, Josep Antoni; Shailer, Neil; Hagelberg, Erika (2000). "Mitochondrial DNA from Myotragus balearicus, an extinct bovid from the Balearic Islands>". Journal of Experimental Zoology. 288 (1): 56–62. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-010X(20000415)288:1<56::AID-JEZ6>3.0.CO;2-X. ISSN 1097-010X. PMID 10750053.
  21. Phone, Besøksadresse Kristine Bonnevies husBlindernvn 31 0371 OSLO Norge Postadresse Postboks 1066 Blindern 0316 OSLO Norge; fax. "Erika Hagelberg - Institutt for biovitenskap". www.mn.uio.no (in Norwegian). Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  22. Brandt, J. Rasmus; Hagelberg, Erika; Bjørnstad, Gro; Ahrens, Sven (2016-12-31). Life and Death in Asia Minor in Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Times: Studies in Archaeology and Bioarchaeology. Oxbow Books. ISBN 9781785703607.
  23. "Project Overview". From racial typology to DNA sequencing. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  24. Wade, Nicholas (2002-12-10). "An Ancient Link to Africa Lives On in Bay of Bengal". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  25. Harding, Luke (2001-05-12). "DNA secret of Stone Age travels". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  26. Silberman, Neil Asher; Bauer, Alexander A.; Holtorf, Cornelius; García, Margarita Díaz-Andreu; Waterton, Emma (2012). The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195076189.
  27. "Life and Death in Asia Minor in Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Times by J. Rasmus Brandt, Erika Hagelberg | Waterstones". www.waterstones.com. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
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