DNA (R)evolution

The evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky famously said that "nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (American Biology Teacher, 1973). Despite over 40 years of intensive research into evolution which has not only sparked exciting new challenges in seemingly unrelated areas such as Computer Science and Mathematics but also benefited from major advances in those areas, this insight still holds for the 21st century. In this talk we will discuss some of these challenges and developments.

Marsupials are an ancient and unique mammals. We share a common ancestor with them, but this lived around 160 million years ago. In the time since, these enigmatic species have followed a very different evolutionary path to that of our own. Using a genomic resource developed by Norwich researchers, we can finally start to explore the genetic basis of specialised traits in the marsupials. With particular focus on the Koala, this talk will cover recent innovation in genome sequencing, how the high-quality data can be used in biology, and what can be learnt about evolution as a result.

Our food crops look nothing like the wild relative plants that they were derived from. The move from wild plant to crop plant has been the result of 1000’s of years of selection and breeding. There are now huge demands on our food crops to deliver more yield, to combat pests and disease while still being healthy for us and having minimum environmental impact. This is a massive challenge but scientists have techniques that could help. In this talk I will look at genome editing using CRISPR/Cas9 and compare it to other techniques to develop improved foods for the future.