We Are What We Ate: The Diets That Fueled Human Evolution

Pascal Gagneux is CARTA's Executive Co-Director, a Professor of Pathology and Anthropology, and the Department Chair of Anthropology at UC San Diego. He is interested in the evolutionary mechanisms responsible for generating and maintaining primate molecular diversity. The Gagneux laboratory studies cell-surface molecules in closely related primates species. His focus is on glycans, the oligosaccharides attached to glycolipids and glycoproteins of the surfaces of every cell and also secreted into the extra-cellular matrix. Gagneux's laboratory is exploring the roles of molecular diversity in protecting populations from pathogens as well as potential consequences for reproductive compatibility. Dr. Gagneux’s interest is in how glycan evolution is shaped by constraints from endogenous biochemistry and exogenous, pathogen-mediated natural selection, but could also have consequences for sexual selection. Dr. Gagneux has studied the behavioral ecology of wild chimpanzees in the Taï Forest, Ivory Coast, population genetics of West African chimpanzees, and differences in sialic acid biology between humans and great apes with special consideration of their differing pathogen regimes. In 2011, while Associate Director of CARTA, Dr. Gagneux helped to establish a graduate specialization in Anthropogeny at UC San Diego. This wholly unique graduate specialization is offered through eight participating graduate programs in the social and natural sciences at UC San Diego.

Erica Sonnenburg is a senior research scientist in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine. She earned her PhD in medical microbiology and immunology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Sonnenburg Lab is currently focused on understanding basic principles that govern interactions within the intestinal microbiota and between the microbiota and the host. To pursue these aims, the lab applies systems approaches (e.g. functional genomics and metabolomics) to gain mechanistic insight into emergent properties of the host-microbial super-organism.

Sonnenburg's groundbreaking findings have been published in prestigious journals such as Cell, Science, and Nature. Along with her husband and collaborator, Justin, she co-authored the book The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-Term Health (Penguin Books, 2016), which explores the relationship between gut health and overall well-being.  Sonnenburg's work has significantly advanced our understanding of the complex interactions between diet, the microbiome, and human health.

Rachel Carmody seeks to understand how the human body acquires and utilizes energy, and how past changes in energy budget have shaped human evolution. Within the past decade, it has become clear that energy metabolism depends on complex interactions between diet, health, genetics, and the structure and function of the microbial communities living inside the human body. Her work considers the human body as an ecosystem, integrating perspectives and experimental techniques from evolutionary biology, nutrition, physiology, microbiology, and metagenomics to pursue a richer understanding of energy exchange. Currently, her group is employing this ecosystem approach to probe the digestive capacities that are unique to humans, the conditions favoring mutualistic versus selfish human-microbial interactions, the modulation of maternal-offspring conflict over energy resources, and the caloric potential of non-caloric dietary components.

Nathaniel Dominy is an anthropologist and evolutionary biologist. He studies the behavior, ecology, and functional morphology of humans and nonhuman primates. His research philosophy is to integrate tropical fieldwork with mechanical, molecular, and isotopic analyses in order to better understand how and why adaptive shifts occurred during primate evolution

I am interested how the brain evolved to support complex social cognitive behavioral abilities like action understanding, imitation, and empathy. I use diffusion tensor imaging, PET functional neuroimaging, and behavioral tasks to study the neural correlates of these abilities in rhesus macaques, chimpanzees, and humans.

Lora Iannotti is the inaugural Lauren and Lee Fixel Distinguished Professor at WashU School of Public Health and founding director of the E3 Nutrition Lab. Her lab aims to identify nutrition solutions that embrace principles embodied in the three E’s: equity, environment and evolution. Iannotti leads projects in Ecuador, Haiti and Madagascar, where she collaborates with local partners to test innovative approaches to achieving sustainable, healthy dietary patterns that improve the growth and brain development of young children. Her research related to animal-source foods has informed the global discourse on nutrition equity, climate change and planetary boundaries, which are the limits that critical processes must stay within to maintain a stable and resilient Earth.

Iannotti is co-director of the Food and Agriculture Research Mission (FARM) at WashU School of Public Health and director of Planetary Health at WashU’s Center for the Environment. She has served on and provides expert advice to global working groups that inform policy on maternal and child nutrition, including the World Health Organization Guidelines Development Group for Complementary Feeding, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s initiatives related to animal-source foods and human health, and the USAID Feed the Future Fish Innovation Lab. Iannotti received her doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a Master of Arts in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia. 

Stefan Ruhl is an internationally known expert on oral biology. He researches saliva and oral bacteria, with the goal of elucidating the role they play in health. One area of focus is the development of tools for learning about glycans, biomolecules that help bacteria attach to host surfaces, including in the mouth. This project includes an effort to collect oral bacteria and saliva from humans, horses, cows, sheep, rodents and other mammals. In other studies, Ruhl has investigated the evolutionary history of important salivary proteins. This work has led to important advances in the field, such as the identification of a starch-digesting enzyme called amylase in the saliva of pet dogs and various other mammals for the first time. The International Association for Dental Research has recognized Ruhl's work and leadership in the field, naming him Salivary Researcher of the Year and honoring him with the association's Distinguished Scientist Award in Salivary Research. He was also elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Justin Sonnenburg, PhD, is the Alex and Susie Algard Endowed Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he studies the gut microbiota in health and disease and co-directs the Center for Human Microbiome Studies.  His laboratory at Stanford develops and employs diverse technologies to understand basic principles that govern interactions within the intestinal microbiota and between the microbiota and the host. An ongoing objective of the research program is to devise and implement innovative strategies to prevent and treat disease in humans via the gut microbiota. Justin conducted his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego in the laboratory of Ajit Varki.  His postdoctoral work was conducted at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri in the laboratory of Jeffrey Gordon.  He has received an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award and Pioneer Award, the AGA Research Mentor Award, and co-founded Interface Biosciences.  He and his wife and collaborator, Erica, are the authors of the book The Good Gut:  Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-Term Health (Penguin Books, 2016).

Sponheimer does research on the ecology of early hominins and associated fauna in Africa. He has also directed and co-directed several multi-disciplinary projects on the ecology of living mammals, both large and small, in South Africa.

Jessica Thompson specializes in human evolution, and especially those aspects that can be revealed through the analysis of ancient animal bones found at archaeological sites (zooarchaeology). She leads the Malawi Ancient Lifeways and Peoples Project in Malawi, central Africa, where she has maintained a field site since 2009. This multidisciplinary work combines archaeological science, evolutionary theory, and hunter-gatherer ethnography to develop and interpret the first cultural and paleoenvironmental chronologies in the region that span the transition from the last Ice Age. Her other research, based on collaborative work in Ethiopia, targets the opposite end of the archaeological record, at its origin in the Pliocene. Thompson is PI of the Yale Paleoarchaeology Laboratory.

Twitter: @YalePaleoarch (public lab) and @archaeochica (private)

Ajit Varki is a Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Emeritus Co-Director of CARTA, Emeritus Co-Director of the Glycobiology Research and Training Center at UC San Diego, and Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute. He received basic training in physiology, medicine, biology, and biochemistry at the Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, The University of Nebraska, and Washington University in St. Louis. He also has formal training and board certification in internal medicine, hematology, and oncology. Varki is the executive editor of Essentials of Glycobiology (Cold Spring Harbor Press, 4th Edition, 2022) and is recipient of a MERIT award from the NIH, and an American Cancer Society Faculty Research Award. Honorific elections include the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the Association of American Physicians. He is also recipient of the three highest honors in his field, the Karl Meyer Award of the Society for Glycobiology, the International Glycoconjugate Organization Award and the Rosalind Kornfeld Award for Lifetime Achievement in Glycobiology. He is recognized for creating the first major open access research journal (J. Clin. Invest., 1996) as well as the first major open access textbook (Essentials of Glycobiology, 2009). He was honored with the Old Cottonian of Eminence Award at the 150th Anniversary of Bishop Cotton Boys School, Bangalore, India, (2015) as well as a Distinguished Faculty Medal and Oration at his medical school alma mater, CMC, Vellore. Significant past appointments include: Co-Head, UC San Diego Division of Hematology-Oncology; President of the Society for Glycobiology; Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Clinical Investigation; Interim Director of the UC San Diego Cancer Center, President of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and UC San Diego Associate Dean for Physician-Scientist Training. Varki's research interests are focused on a family of cell surface sugars called sialic acids, and their roles in biology, evolution and disease. Currently, active projects are relevant to the roles of sialic acids in microbial infectivity, the regulation of the immune response, the progression and spread of tumors, aging, and unique aspects of human evolution. His group is particularly intrigued to find multiple interrelated differences in sialic acid biology between humans and our closest evolutionary cousins, the "great apes." These differences are a signature of the events that occurred during the last few million years of human evolution, and appear to be relevant to understanding several aspects of the current human condition, both in health and disease. Varki’s book, Denial (Twelve, Hachette Books, 2013), explores a novel "Mind Over Reality Transition” (MORT) theory that denying reality and personal mortality was a key step in allowing the emergence of a full theory of mind, and in the origin of our species.