This project, led by Harilanto Razafindrazaka (PhD, CR CNRS), follows a tradition of the laboratory which is the study of the genetic diversity of the populations of the Indian Ocean including the Comoros and Madagascar.
Projects
One of the specificities of our species is its great cultural diversity which, in the same way as genes, is transmitted from generation to generation, which raises the question: how do cultural differences between human populations interact with their biological diversity and vice versa?
Given its medical implications, which will be seen elsewhere, and in the light of high-throughput genomic sequencing, this project proposes an expert re-reading of the molecular genetics of immunogenic polymorphisms (erythrocyte blood group systems and systems involved in the immune response) with a view to contributing both to the understanding of the history and evolution of modern humans and to the evolutionary history of these genes in order to outline their phylogeny.
Human beings and microbes have a permanent and double-edged relationship. In the intestinal flora they complement each other and in some cases these microorganisms cause infectious diseases in humans.
The concept of the self has made it possible to think of the organism under the category of identity in order to account for the unity and effectiveness of the system of defense of its integrity. The dualism of self and non-self posits that an organism defends itself by an immune reaction against an external element ("non-self") while sparing the entities recognized as its own ("self").
The "self/non-self" model is based on the reasoning by analogy long decried by epistemologists, as well as the use of metaphors borrowed from social life, which lead to thinking of the body's self-normativity on the model of a community of competing pathogens (pathogens tolerated by the "self" as endogenous entities) but sufficiently unified to fight against potentially aggressive external agents.
Research on the estimation of the age of immature children is one of the strong identity markers of our team, and has given it international recognition for nearly 20 years. In a forensic context, the challenge is to make the decision of the Justice system more reliable in order to qualify a crime or a homicide (reaching the age of fetal viability, foeticide or neonaticide, justified choice of one method rather than another). In an archaeo-thanatological context, the challenge is to understand and interpret modes of burial or choices of burial sites according to age categories, and to be able to discuss the socio-cultural aspects of age-dependent funeral rites.
As a "forensic science", forensic anthropology must meet strict methodological constraints with regard to the stakes of the conclusions drawn. The reliability of the analytical processing chains of remains (skeletonized or not) which leads to the estimation of the biological profile presented in a court of law is part of it, and an interdisciplinary approach integrating the recent advances in the field of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning is able to bring significant progress.