Genetic fingerprinting and beyond

Wednesday 27 January 2010, 12.15PM

Speaker: Professor Sir Alec J Jeffreys, University of Leicester

DNA fingerprinting, accidentally invented in 1984, has revolutionised many areas of biology, most notably forensic and legal medicine. This lecture will explore how DNA typing can be used to solve casework and will review the latest developments, including the creation of major national DNA databases that are proving extraordinarily effective in the fight against crime. It will also discuss how this work has led to the discovery of some of the most unstable regions of human DNA, and how these in turn have opened the way to exploring the fundamental processes of mutation and recombination that generate all human DNA diversity.

This lecture is the first in the series of York Biology lectures this term:

• How plants survive the night
• A talk by Professor Armand M Leroi, author of Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body

Location: Room P/X001, Physics

Admission: Admission is free and open to all

Email: publiclectures@york.ac.uk

Telephone: 01904 432622