12:00 pm ERC 161
Honorary degree recipient, Sir Shankar Balasubramanian, Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and senior group leader at Cancer Research UK’s Cambridge Institute, will give the lecture, "Reading Your DNA," on Thursday, June 4 starting at 12:00pm in ERC 161.
To attend the lecture in-person, please register at the following link; note that in-person attendance is capped at 130 people: https://forms.gle/EynPbXxY9wjHsTcw6.
To attend by Zoom, please register at the following link: https://uchicago.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BMmtUd_ZShuhgBQKUmSQ-g.
Reading your DNA
DNA is a linear molecule that comprises four building blocks, often abbreviated to the letters G, C, T and A. The sequence of these four letters constitutes a code that comprises 3.2 billion letters in a copy of the human genome. The International Human Genome Project used an approach developed by Fred Sanger to generate the first human genome reference in a global collaboration that spanned a decade. Over 20 years ago, during the course of some basic scientific experiments, a collaboration with David Klenerman and our co-workers, unexpectedly led us to conceive and then pursue a different way of sequencing DNA. The initial experiments ultimately led to a rapid, low-cost sequencing approach, which was developed and commercialized through a company we co-founded, called Solexa. Today the technique is able to sequence human, and other, genomes at a cost and speed that shows over a million-fold improvement compared to when we began the project in 1997. I will also discuss the implications of rapid DNA sequencing for science, medicine and society.