Purple petunias launch next genetic revolution

Submitted by Marie Gilbert
Phone: 907-474-7412
08/01/05

UAF hosts seminar by top scientist

It pays to stop and smell the roses or, in this case, seek a more purple petunia. Scientists trying to produce a more intensely purple petunia by adding additional pigment-producing genes stumbled upon a biological mechanism that turns genes off. Imagine being able to identify which gene plays a role in a disease, such as cancer or HIV, and then being able to switch it off ¥Ë1ò2" this is the promise of the mechanism called RNA interference (RNAi).

The University of Alaska Fairbanks will host Greg Hannon, a world leader in RNAi research and professor and investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York, for a seminar titled "RNA Interference: Mechanisms and Applications" on 10:30 a.m., August 8, 2005, in the Sherman Carter Conference Room, Butrovich Building on the UAF campus. The seminar is free and open to the public.

"Greg is a thought leader in RNAi," said Tom Marr, UA President’s Professor of Bioinformatics, Hannon’s host and former colleague. "This is the hot topic in molecular biology today and will certainly lead to multiple Nobel prizes down the road."

Many diseases start from unwanted production of proteins. Proteins are produced inside a cell when a gene in the nucleus is "read"? by a process called transcription. This process generates a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA), which is then translated into protein in the cytoplasm of a cell. The promise of RNAi therapies is that they can target and degrade this mRNA before it has a chance to produce disease-causing proteins.

"We’re looking at the basic biology of the RNAi mechanism as well as developing an experimental tool to look at gene function," Hannon said. "This is an evolutionarily conserved response. We see it in plants, worms, flies, fungi, mammals and it exists just about everywhere."

Tom Marr, UA president’s professor of bioinformatics, will host a working lunch in West Ridge Research Building room 210 following the seminar. Please contact Tom Marr if you are interested in attending the lunch.

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Contact:
Tom Marr, UA President’s Professor of Bioinformatics, 907.474.5673, fftgm@uaf.edu.
Marie Gilbert, Publications and Information Coordinator, Institute of Arctic Biology, 907.474.7412, marie.gilbert@uaf.edu,.