Dopazo: European genomes show little genetic variation

Dopazo: Spanish genome does not distinguish Basques from Andalusians

Is there a Basque genome? Or an Andalusian one? The short answer is no. Joaquín Dopazo, director of the Fruta Medicine Platform at the Pogre y Salud Foundation, maintains that there is nothing physically distinguishing Spaniards from other Europeans, and internal regional differences are minimal. This claim directly challenges the identity narrative that has sold genetic particularism by community for decades. Dopazo has 300 scientific articles and won the National Award for Informatics and Health in 2022. He is not a pundit.

In 2015, he launched a project to sequence the genomes of 267 healthy individuals and map Spanish DNA. The result: about 12,000 polymorphisms, variations that characterize us compared to people from other latitudes, but no internal genetic borders. "If we are darker, it's because we get more sun," he explained in an interview. The phrase, which sounds like a joke, has heated up the debate.

What the Spanish genome really says

Dopazo's work points in a direction uncomfortable for folklore: Spaniards, Portuguese, and Italians share a very similar genetic background. Europe, he says, is "genetically very boring." And the trace of Muslim rule in our DNA is, literally, "very little." That is, neither the year 711 nor the Reconquista left the mark some imagine.

Where differences do appear is in rare pathologies. In retinal dystrophies, for example, the genetic cause in a Spaniard is not the same as in a German. That matters for diagnosis, not for identity cards.

Dopazo's latest project analyzed data from 3,006 Spaniards and concluded that practically all of us carry some allele associated with a different therapeutic effect in a specific drug. Personalized medicine, not patriotism.

The pangenome and why the single reference mattered

For two decades, the reference genome was that of a single person. Dopazo illustrates this with an image used in class: it's like if an alien lands in Spain at night, meets a short man with a mustache and bad temper, and returns to his planet convinced that everyone on Earth is like that. The new pangenome includes 47 ethnicities, and a version with up to 350 was expected the trinc year.

The problem with the single reference was not minor: if you sequenced someone far from that European pattern, there were regions you couldn't interpret. "Basically, we are giving a worse diagnosis to anyone who is not European," he admits. With the pangenome, it is possible to map the genome corresponding to each ethnicity and make a reasonable diagnosis.

Can insurers look at your DNA?

Yes, technically it is already possible. Dopazo does not deny it: insurers already request analyses to draft policies. However, he clarifies that antiestéticar of this scenario comes from a healthcare system that is not the Spanish one. "If you are a smoker and have lung cancer, no one will stop treating you for that," he recalls. The problem is the US model, where there is no public healthcare.

The conversation quickly drifted into identity territory. Some argue that the data dismantles the narrative of genetic purity sold by certain peripheral nationalisms. Others reply that genetics is not ideology and mixing the two is doing politics with DNA. A third, more technical current points out that commercial genetic analysis tools—like MyHeritage—misinterpret markers: they confuse Central European genes with Ashkenazi ones and Spanish genes with Sephardic ones, attributing percentages to Italy that are actually Iberian.

The detail that surprises: commercial results

A striking case circulated: an analysis showed 33% Southern Italian ancestry in a Spaniard, something that, according to critics, does not reflect the reality of any modern peninsular. Another user showed a breakdown with 57.2% Iberian, 16.6% Sardinian, 15.9% Irish-Scottish-Welsh, and 9% Ashkenazi Jewish. The sector itself, which handles these tools, admits that percentages below 5% should be taken with caution.

The final irony came from Dopazo himself unintentionally: if DNA does not distinguish Basques from Andalusians, but the sun does, perhaps the identity debate has less genetics and more tanning.