Doing the DNA Shuffle

In the battle against infection, the odds look stacked against us. We rely on antibodies to recognize and sound the alarm on potential invaders. Yet our cells come programmed with less than 30,000 genes, far fewer than the billions of foreign structures we might encounter.

The Instruction Manual of the Genome

A squirrel, a squid and a spider appear as different as animals can be. Yet the building materials for each—a vast array of protein molecules—are by and large the same. So how can a squid have ultra-flexible tentacles while a spider has stiff, jointed limbs? It boils down to how those proteins are assembled. And the instruction manual for each body, like the code for each protein, is written within an organism's DNA.

Humanity's Genes and the Human Condition

The University of California, Berkeley, will host a free public symposium on Saturday, Nov. 15, to explore what human genes - and the genes of extinct human ancestors - can tell us about our history, the origin of language, susceptibility to disease and the origins of mental illness.

Mark Schlissel, Dean of Biological Sciences in the College of Letters and Science.