Volume 5, Issue 39 November 2008
Symposium to discuss 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.
Titled "Humanity's Genes and the Human Condition," the symposium is meant to draw other disciplines, in particular the humanities, into a discussion of how recent technological breakthroughs in genome sequencing will affect our understanding of the "human condition," according to organizers Michael Botchan and Steve Martin, UC Berkeley professors of molecular and cell biology.
"Human genome information is now telling us about who we are, where we came from and where we're going," said Botchan. "What was once the purview of molecular biology now intersects with a broad range of disciplines, from anthropology and psychology to linguistics and the law."
The symposium, sponsored by Genentech, takes place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Berdahl Auditorium, 105 Stanley Hall.
Participant Sydney Brenner, who won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, challenged scientists in his Nobel acceptance speech to study in detail "natural human genetic variation and its correlation with ...health and disease." Calling this "the major challenge in human biology and medicine in the next decade," Brenner urged development of the technology to make this possible.
These tools are now in place and improving at a rapid pace. Gene sequencing technology has advanced to the point where the price of sequencing a single human genome - all 20,000 to 25,000 genes - will soon be as low as $5,000. Private companies offering to sequence a customer's "personal genome" are vying for attention, and one company has posted portions of eight genomes on a new Personal Genome Project website that some day could include thousands of genomes.
While fruit flies and nematodes can tell scientists a lot about what genes do and how they work, Martin said, "Brenner has always believed that the proper study of mankind is man. That is where science and UC Berkeley research should be moving."
Edward Penhoet, former director of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and former dean of UC Berkeley's School of Public Health, will open the symposium, while Princeton University geneticist David Botstein will deliver the keynote address. Brenner, who is an adjunct professor at both UC Berkeley and the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., will provide closing remarks. The other main speakers are: