Lecture Overview

In Part 1 of his lecture, Dr. Botstein gives an overview of the benefits for science and society derived from sequencing the genomes of multiple organisms, including humans. The sequences show that many genes have been conserved during evolution; a finding that allows scientists to study simple organisms such as yeast and relate their findings to mammalian biology. In addition, mining genome sequences has identified numerous genes involved in human disease, in some cases resulting in improved screening and treatment.

In his second lecture, Botstein describes experiments done in his lab studying, in yeast, the coordination of growth rate, stress response, metabolism and cell division. Using innovative methods to color code and cluster numerical data from DNA hybridization experiments allows the identification of genes involved in regulating how fast cells grow under different conditions.

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