Razib Khan (Bengali: রাজীব খান) is a Bangladeshi-American writer in population genetics and consumer genomics.
Razib Khan রাজীব খান | |
|---|---|
 Khan in 2015 | |
| Born | Razyb Khan c. 1977 (age 46–47) |
| Nationality | Bangladeshi-American |
| Alma mater | University of Oregon (BS) University of California at Davis |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Population genetics |
Life and education
Khan was born in c. 1977 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He belongs to a Bengali zamindar family from Homna, Comilla District.[1] Khan moved to the United States at the age of five. In kindergarten his teacher pronounced his name "Razib" and the name stuck.[2] He grew up in Upstate New York and Eastern Oregon. Though brought up a Muslim, he was an atheist from an early age.[3]
At the University of Oregon, he completed his Bachelor of Science in biochemistry in 2000, and completed his Bachelor of Science in biology in 2006. Razib also did graduate work at the University of California at Davis.[4] During the early 2000s Khan initially worked as a software engineer, but received funding from Ron Unz and switched his focus to science.[3]
Research and publications
In 2014, Khan made news when he sequenced his son's genome in utero.[5] Antonio Regalado wrote his son may be the first healthy person to have his entire genome sequenced before being born.[5] In an interview with Don Gonyea for NPR's Weekend Edition, Khan stated his child was the most important thing in his life, so it made sense to know everything about his genetics.[6] He was able to obtain the genome sequence by requesting a chorionic villus sampling (CVS) test.[7] After obtaining the raw genetic data, Khan used the free software Promethease to analyze the data.[8] Khan believes society is in the "second age of eugenics,"[9] and full genome sequences of fetuses will become standard procedure for parents in the 21st century.[10] Ainsley Newson wrote "Khan's decision to obtain the whole genome sequence of his partner's fetus while in utero shows us that genomics is no longer a fantasy."[11]
In March 2015, the New York Times announced that it had hired Khan on a short-term contract, and that he would write for them about once a month.[12] The Times wrote he is "a science blogger and a doctoral candidate in genomics and genetics at the University of California, Davis. He writes about evolution, genetics, religion, politics and philosophy."[12] The same day the Times announced hiring Khan, Gawker published an opinion piece written by J.K Trotter, who noted that Khan also wrote blogs for Taki's Magazine, an online publication "founded in 2007 by Taki Theodoracopulos, the flamboyantly racist Greek."[13] As a result of Khan's history of writing for controversial publications, the Times removed him as a regular periodic contributor, but stated they remain "open to consideration of submissions from him" in the op-Ed pages.[14] The Times did not specifically mention the part of Khan's work they found uncomfortable,[15] and he wrote two op-eds for the paper before they ended his contract.[16] Khan wrote on Twitter, "yeah, told me today. may contribute one-off op-eds in future. i’m chill about it. it wasn’t a surprise that ppl went ballistic."[15]In a 2016 interview with the economist and podcaster James Miller, referring to the cancelled Times contract, Khan stated, "I have a clean conscience because I say what I think is true."[17]
Books
He contributed a chapter titled Genetic Origin of Indo-Aryans in the 2019 book Which Of Us Are Aryans?. The book was co-authored by Romila Thapar, Michael Witzel, Jaya Menon and Kai Friese.
Other projects
In December 2010, Khan co-founded the group blog Brown Pundits together with British-Pakistani Bahá'í Zachary L. Zavidé and Pakistani-American Omar Ali. The blog pertains mainly to South Asian issues. In October 2018 they began an associated podcast called The Brown Pundits Podcast.[18]