Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academics

Distinguished Lecture Series

Title: The Genomics Revolution:
Marching Into the Millennium with the Secrets of Life

James E. Womack, Ph.D.
Professor of Veterinary Pathobiology
Texas A&M University

Tuesday, December 4, 2001, at 7:30 p.m.
Auditorium, Annenberg Presidential Conference Center
Texas A&M University

Abstract

The Genomic Revolution began about a decade ago as a bold medical initiative, but it already touches our lives, not only through our medical care but also through the food we eat, the clothes we wear and even through our criminal justice system. The Genomics Revolution is unlocking the secrets of our genes and those of many life forms with which we share the planet. In the backwash of this tidal wave of genomic information, however, float a variety of social and ethical problems. Do we really want to know the respective roles of nature and nurture in forming our cognitive abilities or our behavior? Do insurance companies have the same right to our medical future as they do to our medical history? Will we buy genetically engineered food and drugs or, can we morally justify withholding these products from the sick and hungry in developing countries? On the other hand, we can't deny future generations the fruits of the most powerful science of the past century on the basis of hysteria generated by ignorance and fear.

The clock has run out for dismissing these issues as merely science fiction or quietly passing them along to be considered by the next generation. The goal of the lecture is to explain "genomics" in terms of both its biological and social implications and to try to separate fact from fiction so that ethical, social and political decisions can be made in a rational environment.

About the Speaker

James E. Womack is a professor of veterinary pathobiology and holds the W. P. Luse Endowed Professorship in the Department of Veterinary Pathobiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University. Womack holds a bachelor of science degree from Abilene Christian University and a doctor of philosophy degree from Oregon State University. He joined the faculty at Texas A&M in 1977.

Womack says his laboratory is dedicated to comparative mammalian genomics, particularly to comparative mapping of the bovine genome relative to the genomes of humans and mice. Initially, his laboratory team identified large segments of chromosomal conservation between these diverse mammalian species. Now they are engaged in high-resolution mapping to define rearrangements of gene order that have accompanied chromosomal evolution. Principal mapping methods employed are fluorescence in situ hybridization, or FISH, linkage analysis including use of an interspecific hybrid backcross panel, and more recently, radiation hybrid mapping. The work of Womack and his laboratory team is leading to a better understanding of mammalian chromosome evolution and is being applied in the extrapolation of candidate genes from the human and mouse maps I the search for genes of economic significance in cattle.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the author of numerous publications.