The biomaterials currently available for this population are shown in the table below:

Population Description

Principal Investigators for Community Engagement and Sample Collection:
Houcan Zhang, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Changqing Zeng, Beijing Genomics Institute, Beijing, China

These cell lines and DNA samples were prepared from blood samples collected from individuals living in the residential community at Beijing Normal University. All of the samples are from unrelated individuals who identified themselves as having at least three out of four Han Chinese grandparents.

It is important to include a reference to "Beijing, China" when describing the source of these samples (and to use the abbreviation "CHB" where a shorthand designation is needed). While residents of the Beijing Normal University come from many different parts of China, and while the samples are in no way genetically "atypical", they were not necessarily drawn to be representative of all Han Chinese people, nor of all people in China, where there are 56 officially recognized ethnicities. The population should not be described merely as "Asian" or as "East Asian", terms that encompass many populations whose ancestors came from places other than China.

It may be scientifically appropriate to pool data from these samples with data from other ancestrally related groups, when the data show that the groups have similar allele frequencies. If the groups all have Asian ancestry, the designation "Asian ancestry" (abbreviation: ASA) to describe the combined analysis panel is recommended. If only groups very closely related to the Han Chinese have similar allele frequencies, then another abbreviation may need to be used.

Additional guidance about how to refer to the HapMap populations can be found at http://www.hapmap.org/citinghapmap.html.

Policies and Guidelines

• Guidelines for Referring to the HapMap Populations in Publications and Presentations
• Important Information for Investigators Who Order HapMap Samples
• Information Provided to HapMap Sample Donor Communities
• Secondary Distribution and Shared Use of Cell Cultures and DNA Samples