■ ARCADIA -- health & wellness Home Care & Staffing Medieval Roots Home Care at the Highest Standard Genome analysis shows Ashkenazi Jews descend from about 350 people. A full service agency providing quality care for your loved ones. • Live-In or Hourly • No minimum hours • Complimentary Assessment • Ongoing Care Coordination • All employees are bonded & insured 1 in 5 people of Ashkenazi Jewish origin are carriers of a Jewish genetic disorder Andrew Tobin Caregivers Assist With: 'Medication Reminders -Safety Monitoring 'Transportation Call Lynn Feinberg and Andy Roisman Times of Israel 'Bathing & Dressing 'Kosher Prepared Meals 'Companionship (248) 594-4574 visit us online • arcadiahomecare.comail Acupuncture & Chinese Medical Center Acupuncture & Chinese Medical Center's practitioners obtained their O.M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in oriental medicine and are licensed and nationally certified in acupuncture, Chinese herbs, Asian body work, and oriental medicine. Our senior acupuncturists have more than thirty years of clinical experience. We specialize in treating various rare and complicated diseases, as well as facial rejuvenation and common illnesses. For more information, please visit the clinic website: www.acupunctureherbscenter.com 7071 Orchard Lake Rd. Suite 115 West Bloomfield, MI 48322 4343 Concourse Dr. Suite 110 Ann Arbor, MI 48108 248-325-9552 734-996-0888 1941830 NOW OPEN! FREE Your NEW Neighborhood Pharmacy DELIVER FREE Et MEDICATION CONSULTATION (r° DISCOUNT 20°'° OFF ALL CASH PRESCRIPTIONS! ALL NEW PATIENTS rranmim Health Mart Pharmacy Franklin Health Mart Pharmacy 291 13 Northwestern Hwy. Southfield 248.355.1910 OTC Medications I Blood Pressure Monitors I Diabetic Supplies I Immunizations I Medical Equipment 1943780 III MIP0•1"MIM ■ 82 September 25 • 2014 m A new study concludes that all Ashkenazi Jews can trace their ancestry to a "bottle- neck" of just 350 individuals, dating back to between 600 and 800 years ago. The study, published in the Nature Communications journal Sept. 9, was authored by Shai Carmi, a com- puter science professor at Columbia University, and more than 20 medi- cal researchers from Yale, Columbia, Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Memorial Sloan- Kettering Cancer Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and other institutions. Researchers analyzed the genomes of 128 Ashkenazi Jews and com- pared them to those of non-Jewish Europeans in order to determine which genetic markers are unique to Ashkenazi Jews. They found that the Ashkenazi Jews' genetic similarities were so acute that one of the study's researchers, Columbia professor Itsik Pe'er, told the Live Science website that among Ashkenazi Jews, "everyone is a 30th cousin:' The findings will enable researchers to catalog nearly all of the genetic vari- ations from the founding population, the study's authors said. Such thorough genetic cataloging could help clinicians interpret individual genetic mutations, improve disease mapping and provide insight into the histories of Middle Eastern and European populations, the study said. The catalog of complete Ashkenazi Jewish genomes should help identify the disease-causing mutations that the progenitors of Ashkenazi Jewry passed on. Until now, data has only been available for a small subset of common Ashkenazi DNA markers — about one in every 3,000 letters of DNA. The findings are also expected to help with disease research in other ethnic groups. "Our study is the first full DNA sequence dataset available for Ashkenazi Jewish genomes," said Pe'er, an Israeli computer scientist at Columbia University, who led the study. "With this comprehensive catalog of mutations present in the Ashkenazi Jewish population, we will be able to more effectively map disease genes onto the genome and thus gain a better understanding of common disorders. We see this study serving as a vehicle for personalized medicine and a model for researchers working with other populations:' Medieval Founders Ashkenazi Jews are known to have origins in the Levant, which Israel is smack dab in the middle of. But exactly who "European" Ashkenazi Jews are has long been debated. An analysis of the gene database shows that the original Ashkenazi Jews were about half European and half Middle Eastern. They lived in the medieval era, about 600 to 800 years ago, according to the analysis — and numbered just 350 or so people. "Our analysis shows that Ashkenazi Jewish medieval founders were ethni- cally mixed, with origins in Europe and in the Middle East, roughly in equal parts:' said Carmi, a post- doctoral scientist who works with Peer and conducted the analysis. "[The] data are more comprehensive than what was previously available, and we believe the data settle the dis- pute regarding European and Middle Eastern ancestry in Ashkenazi Jews:' The analysis also suggested that today's Europeans are descended primarily from migrants from the Middle East after the last ice age, about 20,000 years ago, not from the first humans to arrive to the continent about 40,000 years ago. The researchers are now looking into where the Middle Eastern and European Jews first met and who their closest descendants are today. Because the Ashkenazi commu-