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// Workers AI · dad joke modeIs Keolu Fox a good researcher? Fox-unately, yes.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Patrick Keolu Fox
Fox in 2021
OccupationGeneticist
Known forIndigenous data sovereignty, Benefit sharing
Academic background
Alma materWashington (PhD), Maryland (BA)
ThesisNext Generation ABO Genetics and Genomics hdl:1773/38148 (2016)
Debbie Nickerson
Academic work
InstitutionsUniversity of California, San Diego

Patrick Keolu Fox is an American anthropologist and human geneticist at the University of California, San Diego, where he is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and an investigator at the J. Craig Venter Institute. Fox's academic publishing is focused on indigenous data sovereignty and bioethics. He has been an advocate for the community-based participatory research model as a strategy for increasing collaboration between the field of genetics and Indigenous communities.[1] He has also examined the potential use of data trusts, federated machine intelligence, and blockchain technologies for Indigenous data sovereignty.[2]

Early life

Fox was born in the Bay Area, California. His family moved to Alaska during his first year of primary school, then to Hawaiʻi, then to Maryland, where he attended and graduated from Eleanor Roosevelt High School in 2004. His father Uziel Awret was an Israeli physicist and philosopher from Safed.[3] Fox's mother is from the island of Hawaiʻi and is of mixed indigenous Hawaiian and Portuguese descent, a common ethnic makeup on the island owing to historical Portuguese immigration to Hawaiʻi[3]

Education

Fox received a BA in anthropology from the University of Maryland in 2008, and PhD from the University of Washington's Department of Genome Sciences in 2016.[3]

Research

Fox's graduate work involved genomic analysis of ABO genetic variation in American genomes from two NIH datasets, the NHLBI Exome Sequencing Project and MHGRID. He identified a new instance of structural variation in thiry-two African American genomes which is predicted to be non-functional.[4][5] Fox later worked with population geneticist Fernando Villanea, who described selective advantage among human blood group heterozygotes,[6] on ABO variation in Neanderthals and Denisovans.[7]

In 2024, Fox participated in the analysis of data from an 2021 epidemiological survey which gathered clinical and self-reported data on lifestyle habits from gout sufferers in French Polynesia.[8] Fox has also studied the introduction and genetic history of leprosy in Oceania using ancient DNA.[9]

Indigenous activism

In 2020, Fox critiqued the NIH's All of Us program for exploiting Indigenous genetic data without proper safeguards in a perspective paper.[10] Four months later, two of the program's leaders responded in the same journal, welcoming contributions from Fox and others engaged in activism and describing how they had been working with tribal leadership from American Indian and Alaska Native communities for over a year.[11][12]

In 2019, Fox and paleoanthropologist John Hawks critiqued the lack of rules and regulations in the field of aDNA research on indigenous remains, describing it as colonial and extractive and calling for accountability and transparency in the use of such remains.[13] In the United States, indigenous remains and any scientific research performed on them (including remains retroactively identified as Native American by aDNA sequencing) has been governed under the purview of NAGPRA since its passage in 1990.[14][15]

Fox is an advocate of indigenous futurism, and has spoken publicly on integrating sustainable practices into large scale computation, particularly in AI development and data centers, drawing on analogies and trends in indigenous practices such as decentralization and circular economies.[16][17][18]

In a 2024 TED Talk, Fox discussed researchers who are exploring the concept of using plant DNA as a storage medium.[19]

Professional affiliations

  • Co-founder - Native BioData Consortium[20]
  • Co-founder - Indigenous Futures Institute[21]
  • Co-founder - EarthFrame [22]
  • Advisor - Variant Bio [23]

Selected publications

References

  1. ↑ Yong, Ed (23 October 2015). "Making Indigenous Peoples Equal Partners in Gene Research". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 12 March 2019.
  2. ↑ Tran, Tony Ho (21 July 2022). "Blockchain May End the Pillaging of Indigenous Genetic Data". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 9 February 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 Boyanton, Megan Ulu-Lani (2025-11-01). "Faces of the Diaspora: Bringing 'Ike Kūpuna to Genome Sciences". Ka Wai Ola. Retrieved 2026-04-06.
  4. ↑ Fox, Keolu; Johnsen, Jill M.; Coe, Bradley P.; Frazar, Chris D.; Reiner, Alexander P.; Eichler, Evan E.; NHLBI Exome Sequencing Project; Minority Health-GRID Network (2016-08-31). "Analysis of exome sequencing data sets reveals structural variation in the coding region of ABO in individuals of African ancestry". Transfusion. 56 (10): 2578–2587. doi:10.1111/trf.13797. PMID 27580710.
  5. ↑ "ISBT Blood Group Database". blooddatabase.org. Retrieved 2026-04-09.
  6. ↑ Villanea, Fernando A.; Safi, Kristin N.; Busch, Jeremiah W. (2015-05-06). "A General Model of Negative Frequency Dependent Selection Explains Global Patterns of Human ABO Polymorphism". PLOS ONE. 10 (5) e0125003. Bibcode:2015PLoSO..1025003V. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0125003. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 4422588. PMID 25946124.
  7. ↑ Villanea, Fernando A.; Huerta-Sanchez, Emilia; Fox, Keolu (August 2021). "ABO Genetic Variation in Neanderthals and Denisovans". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 38 (8): 3373–3382. doi:10.1093/molbev/msab109. PMC 8321519. PMID 33892510.
  8. ↑ Pascart, Tristan; Wasik, Kaja A.; Preda, Cristian; Chune, Valérie; Torterat, Jérémie; Prud'homme, Nicolas; Nassih, Maryline; Martin, Agathe; Le Masson, Julien; Rodière, Vahinetua; Frogier, Sylvain; Canova, Georges; Pescheux, Jean-Paul; Fan, Charles Shan Sei; Jauffret, Charlotte; Claeys, Patrick; LeBaron von Baeyer, Sarah; Castel, Stephane E.; Emde (April 2024). "The gout epidemic in French Polynesia: a modelling study of data from the Ma'i u'u epidemiological survey". Lancet Global Health. 12 (4): e685–e696. doi:10.1016/S2214-109X(24)00012-3. PMID 38485432.
  9. ↑ Blevins, Kelly E.; Crane, Adele E.; Lum, Christopher; Furuta, Kanako; Fox, Keolu; Stone, Anne C. (2020-10-05). "Evolutionary history of Mycobacterium leprae in the Pacific Islands". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 375 (1812). doi:10.1098/rstb.2019.0582. PMC 7702798. PMID 33012236.
  10. ↑ Fox, Keolu (July 2020). "The Illusion of Inclusion — The 'All of Us' Research Program and Indigenous Peoples' DNA". New England Journal of Medicine. 338 (5): 411–413. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1915987. PMID 32726527.
  11. ↑ "The "All of Us" Program and Indigenous Peoples". New England Journal of Medicine. 383 (19): 1892–1893. 2020-11-04. doi:10.1056/NEJMc2028907. ISSN 0028-4793.
  12. ↑ "Respectful Research Involving American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Populations". User Support. 2025-02-13. Retrieved 2026-04-09.
  13. ↑ Fox, Keolu; Hawks, John (August 2019). "Use ancient remains more wisely". Nature. 572 (7771): 581–583. Bibcode:2019Natur.572..581F. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-02516-5. PMID 31462783.
  14. ↑ Sapiens (2017-03-30). "The Ethical Battle Over Ancient DNA". SAPIENS. Retrieved 2026-04-22.
  15. ↑ "The Ancient One, Kennewick Man". Burke Museum. Retrieved 2026-04-22.
  16. ↑ Fox, Keolu; Kapono, Cliff (December 6, 2022). "Back to the Future: Intertwining Indigenous knowledge with synthetic biology to restore Hawaiʻi's ecology". Grow by Ginkgo. The Futures Issue. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  17. ↑ "Call for Papers: Earth Friendly Computation (EFC)". Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  18. ↑ "Essay: Indigenous Futurism, History, and Technology". National Geographic. 28 June 2024. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  19. ↑ Kapono, Cliff; Fox, Keolu (May 6, 2024). "Could We Replace Data Centers with Plant DNA?". TED. TED Conferences. Retrieved October 21, 2024.
  20. ↑ Liverpool, Layal (18 May 2023). "First human 'pangenome' aims to catalogue genetic diversity". Nature. 617 (7961): 444–445. Bibcode:2023Natur.617..444L. doi:10.1038/d41586-023-01576-y. PMID 37165229. S2CID 258617920.
  21. ↑ "Our Mission". Indigenous Futures Institute, UCSD. Archived from the original on July 8, 2024. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  22. ↑ "Our Team". EarthFrame. EarthFrame Corporation. Retrieved 26 April 2026.
  23. ↑ "Advisors". Variant Bio. Retrieved 26 April 2026.
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