Hendrick Poinar

A Professor of Anthropology and Biochemistry, a Canada Research Chair in Paloegenetics and a senior fellow in the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Hendrik Poinar is an interdisciplinary scientist with training in evolutionary genetics, molecular biology and genomics. He has a deep passion for uncovering the minute traces of organic molecules (DNA, RNA, proteins) buried deep within fossils and sedimentary records, which he has been studying for 25 years. He trained broadly at various institutions in California, Germany, the UK, Italy, France and now directs the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre at McMaster University in Hamilton Canada. He’s an advocate for communicating complex science in meaningful and comprehensible terms to all ages (K-senior) having given numerous interviews to various media outlets (PBS, CNN, NBC, NYT, BBC, CBC). His lab’s work has appeared in many international documentaries and he’s a TED speaker on the topic of de-extincting the woolly mammoth. Currently his group is mining the tiny traces of DNA buried in teaspoon amounts of frozen sediment from our North to investigate why so many large animals went extinct 10,000 years ago at a period of climatic instability and fluctuation and yet how, surprisingly, some giant creatures may have unexpectedly survived into much more recent times than previously thought.