GENETICS EXPERT TO DELIVER DEAN'S SEMINAR MARCH 19-20

Manfred Zorn of the Lawrence Berkeley Lab will discuss the role of computing in the Human Genome Project Monday and Tuesday, March 19 and 20, at Old Dominion University.

His visit is part of the Dean of the College of Sciences Distinguished Visitor Seminars on Bioinformatics.

The Human Genome Project led to the complete sequencing of human genes, which scientists in February said will help decipher the genetic basis of many diseases and in time revolutionize medicine. The project was a historic milestone for the human population in general and scientists in particular.

The Berkeley Lab is the oldest of the national laboratories and claims nine Nobel Prizes - five for physics and four for chemistry. Berkeley is a multiprogram lab where research in advanced materials, life sciences, energy efficiency, detectors and accelerators serves America's needs in technology and the environment.

Zorn will give a general public lecture titled "Annotating the Human Genome: The Uses and Pitfalls of Computers in Biology" at 8 p.m. March 19 in 100 Kaufman Hall. The presentation is free and open to the public.

Zorn is the head of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab's Human Genome Center in California. He received his master's degree in chemistry and his doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Vienna, Austria.

More information on the seminars and other speakers in the series is available at http://www.cs.odu.edu/~pothen/BioInformatics/.