EMORY UNIVERSITY School of Medicine (pictured) researchers discovered that the Ashkenazi Jewish population is genetically more varied than people of European ancestry, despite a prevailing belief that Ashkenazi Jews are an isolated population.

According to an Aug. 26 University press release, researchers in the laboratory of Stephen Warren, chairman of human genetics at the School of Medicine, utilized DNA microarray technology to explore variant sites across the genomes of 471 Ashkenazi Jews. The research is a collaboration between Warren and Ann Pulver, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Steven Bray, a postdoctoral fellow in Warren’s laboratory, said Ashkenazi Jews probably interbred with . . . → Read More: Jewish Genome Shows Unexpected Diversity