PSL 75 - Gene, Genome, Genomics - The 3Gs and the Society

Name: PSL 75 - Gene, Genome, Genomics - The 3Gs and the Society
Start: 2024-07-06T11:00:00+05:30
Location: Anna Centenary Library

Schedule

Sat Jul 06 2024 at 11:00 am

UTC+05:30

Location

Anna Centenary Library | Chennai, TN

About the Speaker
Dr. S. Revathi Devi , is an Assistant Professor at SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai. She completed her PhD in Genetics at University of Madras, Chennai and did her Postdoctoral Research in National Institute of Genetics, Japan. Her research interests are identification of the causative genes of rare genetic diseases and genomic evaluation of viral evolution. She has published nearly 19 research papers and currently working on cancer-causing rare genetic diseases.
About the Lecture
In the year 1865, Gregor Johann Mendel, the father of Genetics, established “Mendelian laws of inheritance” which are the gold standard laws of Genetics to understand inheritance. Even at that point, Mendel himself was unaware of genes and their molecular functions and used the term “elemente” to refer the unit of heredity. The actual terminology “gene” was coined later in 1909. From Mendelian period to today, the field of Genetics has flourished with remarkable multidimensional growth. Over the course of two centuries, with incredible growth in the last two decades, we have progressed from finding individual genes and deciphering their functions to being able to sequence, decode, and comprehend the entire genetic information of an organism called the “genome” in a matter of days. Thanks to this huge dataset of genomic data from organisms including humans, we explore evolution, disease susceptibility, ancestral lineage prediction, and animal and plant breeding much more effectively than before. Even rare genetic diseases which were difficult to diagnose and treat before are now being cured by correcting the disease-causing genes through genome editing. Given the wide range of applications of genomics in many domains that are vital to human society, it is compelling to comprehend what genomics is and how it may impact an individual as well as a society. In this talk, let us converse elaborately about genomics and its implications in our society to create understanding and awareness about this field.