How Well Do You Know Your Genes?

How Well Do You Know Your Genes?
Main Category: Genetics
Article Date: 25 Aug 2010 - 2:00 PDT


A new series of accessible public lectures is being launched at the University of Leicester with the specific aim of making genetics simpler to understand.

The University of Leicester is world-renowned for the discovery of DNA fingerprinting by Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys of the Department of Genetics.

Now GENIE, the University of Leicester's Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Genetics, is launching a new and exciting series of public lectures that will be informative, entertaining and very accessible to non-scientists.

Dr. Colin Glen, one of the organisers, said: "With increasing emphasis being placed on engagement between science and the wider public, these events will provide fantastic opportunities to hear about cutting edge research and to put questions directly to those leading and doing the work."

Since being established in 1964 the Department of Genetics has built a hugely impressive reputation. It has continued to grow, becoming a centre of pioneering research, pushing back the frontiers of knowledge in human and medical genetics, microbial pathogens and disease, evolution, and the genetics of behaviour and development.

Founded in 2005, GENIE builds on the expertise and synergy between world-class science and genetics education in the Department and carries out a wide variety of work that includes outreach and public engagement, pedagogic research and the development and evaluation of teaching resources.

Speaking at the inaugural event in October, will be Professor Tony Brookes and Dr. Ed Hollox. Professor Brookes is interested in the ways in which rapidly developing new technologies can be used to study genetic variation, both to understand the innate complexities of the genome and to explore how these affect susceptibility to diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and heart disease.

Dr. Hollox's work concerns parts of the human genome that vary between different people. Despite containing genes involved in the immune system, these parts are understudied and we know very little about them. In particular, Dr Hollox studies copy number variation, where different people have different numbers of the same gene.

A second pair of lectures is scheduled for February 2011. These will be given by Professor Charalambos Kyriacou and Dr. Turi King. Professor Kyriacou works primarily on the genetics of biorhythms that govern our body clocks. Dr. King is interested in the links between surnames and genetics, both how those links could be used in forensics and what they can tell us about our Viking heritage.

Sources: Leicester University, AlphaGalileo Foundation.
How Well Do You Know Your Genes?