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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, September 16, 2013 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Jeffery A. Schloss

"The Technology of DNA Sequencing and its Social Implications"

ABSTRACT -- The initial sequencing of the human genome spurred an appetite for much more human sequence information to better understand the contributions of human sequence variation to health and disease.  However, despite dramatic reductions during the Human Genome Project, the cost of sequencing was clearly too high to collect the very large numbers of human and numerous other organism genome sequences needed to achieve that understanding.   In 2004, NHGRI launched parallel programs to reduce the cost of sequencing a mammalian genome initially by two (in five years), and eventually by four orders of magnitude (in ten years). This presentation will summarize the technologies that are in high-throughput use to produce stunning amount of sequence and related data and novel biological insights, and will emphasize technologies currently emerging and on the horizon that may provide human genome sequence data of the nature, quality and cost, and with the turn-around time, needed for applications in research and medicine.  We will also discuss some of the challenges associated with public access to large numbers of human genome sequences and introducing sequencing into clinical applications.

SPEAKER -- Jeffery A. Schloss is Director, Division of Genome Sciences, at the National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH.  In addition, he manages a grants program to develop technologies with which to sequence human genomes for $1,000, and coordinates the Centers of Excellence in Genomic Science program.  Dr. Schloss helped to formulate and then led or served on interdisciplinary initiatives, including NIH Bioengineering Consortium (BECON), the Trans-NIH Nano Task Force, and the U.S. interagency National Nanotechnology Initiative.   

Dr. Schloss received the NIH Director's Award in 1997, twice in 1998, 2004, 2006 and 2008. He earned his undergraduate degree in biology from Case Western Reserve University in 1973, and a Ph.D. in cell biology from Carnegie Mellon University in 1979.


Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov