American Scientist

Jenny Tung says the quality of our relationships —friendly or competitive—has a large effect on our health. Tung is an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology and biology at Duke University and an affiliate of the Duke Population Research Institute, the Center for Genomic and Computational Biology, and the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development. Her research on nonhuman primates—baboons and macaques—seeks to tease out how our social lives translate into our genes and immune systems.

On February 22, 2022, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, hosted a virtual presentation by Tung as part of its Science by the Slice series (video and curated live tweets are below). In starting off her talk, Tung encouraged a shift in thinking of social interactions as part of our environment, and so highlighted research data from others showing how poor social relationships may be even more influential on increased mortality than either smoking or alcoholism.

One key component of Tung's talk was in examining early life adversity and its effects on health/fitness/lifespan and social adversity, and the extent to which beneficial factors later in life mediated those early experiences (see "The Challenge of Survival for Wild Infant Baboons" by Susan Alberts, who is one of Tung's collaborators). Because it's very difficult to untangle even those correlations in people, "this is where studies in other animals can be very powerful," Tung says. Her research team studies socially cooperative meerkats and Damaraland mole rats, too.

"How Social Environments Get Under The Skin: Lessons From Nonhuman Primates"

A Q&A with Jenny Tung, conducted by Brian Malow

Live tweets, including by American Scientist's Editor-in-Chief, Fenella Saunders, made during the talk are compiled below.