Mississippi State University hosted a Distinguished Lecture Series presentation Monday in the Hunter Henry Center Ballroom featuring two prominent human genome research scientists.
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Phillip Oldham said the Distinguished Lectures are part of the 125th celebration and the investiture celebration of President Lee.
The selected speakers were husband and wife, Dr. J. Craig Venter and Dr. Claire Fraser. Venter and Fraser are two of the leading scientists in the mapping of human genomes.
Fraser is the president and director of The Institute for Genomic Research.
TIGR is one of three non-profit organizations founded by Venter.
Venter is president and director of the other two non-profit organizations, The Center for the Advancement of Genomics and The Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives.
Allen Wood, director of the Life Science Institute, said “Doctors Venter and Fraser were chosen to speak at our Distinguished Lectures because they have made a significant contribution to our future.”
Venter helped pioneer a new way of gene discovery called EST (Expressed Sequence Tags). EST was considered revolutionary at the time of its discovery. Through EST, scientists sequenced genes by breaking up the genome into small pieces and then putting them back together, much like putting a puzzle together. The discovery is widely recognized as the key breakthrough allowing researchers to map the human genome accurately and quickly.
“Scientists are studying human DNA and beginning to understand its full function and what can be done with it,” Wood said.
The College of Arts and Sciences, the office of research, the Life Science Biotechnical Institute and the MSU Development Foundation sponsored the event.
Fraser’s lecture, titled “Healing to Evolution; Harnessing Microbial Genome,” began after 1 p.m. Venter’s lecture, titled “Our Genomic Future” began at 4 p.m. yesterday.
A student forum took place at 10:30 a.m. yesterday in the Union Ballroom.
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