Biology

Dr. Antony Jose
Department of Cell Biology & Molecular Genetics in the University of Maryland (College Park), USA

Abstract:

Why do we all look like humans? How much of what we are is programmed? To answer these questions, we need to consider all the information that we inherit from our parents. Every organism transmits the information for making a similar organism across a boundary between generations. This boundary is minimally a single cell, a bottleneck through which two interdependent but distinct stores of information are transmitted. One store is the linear genome sequence that is replicated during cell divisions. The other is a three-dimensional arrangement of molecules that cycles during development such that it is essentially recreated at the start of each generation. Together these form the cell code for making an organism – a union of multiple information stores that coevolve. Well-known DNA repair mechanisms can correct damages to our genome sequence before transmission to the next generation. I will discuss evidence for additional repair mechanisms that can enable recovery from changes in gene expression within the germline. Collectively, these repair mechanisms preserve form and function by opposing the evolution of cell codes, impel the joint analysis of all heritable information, and reframe the limits of nature versus nurture.