SCIENCE AT THE SHINE DOME canberra 7 - 9 may 2008
New Fellows Seminar
Wednesday, 7 May 2008
Professor John Mattick
Professor of Molecular Biology, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland
John Mattick has a degree from the University of Sydney and a PhD from Monash University. He has worked at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, the CSIRO Division of Molecular Biology in Sydney, and at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Cologne and Queensland, where he has been based since 1988. He was the foundation director of the Australian Genome Research Facility and the Institute for Molecular Bioscience. He was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) in 2001. He has also been awarded the LKB Biotechnology Medal by the Australian Biochemical Society, Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, the Australian Government Centenary Medal, the CSIRO Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science and the inaugural Gutenberg Chair at the University of Strasbourg. He is an associate member of the European Molecular Biology Organization and an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow.
The hidden layer of information in the human genome
The human genome programs the development of a precisely sculptured individual of about 100 trillion cells with hundreds of different muscles, bones and organs. It contains about 20,000 protein-coding genes: about the same number and with similar functions as those in tiny worms that have only 1,000 cells. This raises the question: where is the genetic information that programs our complexity? The answer it seems lies in the 98 per cent of our genome – the ‘junk’ DNA – which resides within and between our genes. This junk DNA is copied into RNA, forming a massive hidden network of regulatory information that directs the use of different genes during growth and development, including brain development, learning and memory. What was dismissed as junk because it was not understood may well hold the key to understanding human complexity, as well as our idiosyncrasies and susceptibility to common diseases.
