Dr. George Church visited Jemicy’s Upper School Campus on Thursday, November 11th. Building off of the Human Genome Project, which mapped, for example, on which chromosome you would find a particular cancer gene, Dr. Church initiated The Personal Genome Project. In essence, now that we know where the gene for a particular cancer is, we can tell a specific person whether he carries that gene and then predict his likelihood of developing certain diseases. In anticipation of Dr. Church’s visit, Ms. Pearson’s 4th period Advanced Biology class studiedDrosophila, the common fruit fly used in genetics. The students learned why this creature is used so often in genetic research and examined the dominant and recessive traits in these organisms. Additionally, they used appropriate, approved protocols to keep these creatures alive and reproducing, so they could study them through three generations. In the evening, Dr. Church was the featured speaker at the 25th Annual David Malin Lecture, where he spoke about Reading and Writing Genomes.

http://www.jemicyschool.org/index.php/component/content/article/45/147