The powerful drama and background stories behind the race to unveil the human genome form the subject of the next Irish Times/Royal Dublin Society Science Today lecture. The talk takes place at the RDS on March 12th.
Kevin Davies will discuss his new book, The Sequence, Inside the Race for the Human Genome. It provides an in-depth account of the first steps towards cataloguing human DNA, to the release last June of the first draft of the genome. Dr Davies is well qualified to discuss the issues involved. He holds a Ph.D from the University of London where he was a member of a team which searched for the gene that causes cystic fibrosis.
He has lived and worked in the US since 1987 and since 1990 has been a senior editor with a number of the world's leading scientific journals.
He founded Nature Genetics, a spin-off publication from Nature, and was the science editor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland, the largest medical philanthropy institute in the US. He is now the editor-in-chief of Cell Press, publisher of six leading science journals.
The subject of the book is particularly timely given the announcements this week from scientists around the world who simultaneously released their latest genome research findings in the journals Nature and Science.
Dr Davies will describe this research, what it means and why it is so important. He will discuss early discoveries in the 1980s and 1990s including the identification of the genes which cause Huntington's Disease, muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis. Some discoveries included real personal dramas, for example the bitter race between researchers to find the breastcancer gene now known as BRCA1.
The lecture is part of an ongoing commitment by The Irish Times and the RDS to help the public become aware of scientific research and the important developments it brings.
The lecture will take place at the RDS Concert Hall on Monday, March 12th at 7 p.m. The lecture is geared for a general audience, using non-technical language. The lecture is free but places must be booked in advance.
For bookings, contact Maeve Cosgrove of the RDS at 01 - 240 7211 or by e-mail at maeve.cosgrove@rds.ie
The Sequence, Inside the Race for the Human Genome, by Kevin Davies was published this week in London, £20 in UK.