Unfolding ‘The Deepest Mysteries of Creation’ with CRISPR Gene-editing Technology
** watch future Linda Hall Library lectures live at new.livestream.com/lindahall ** March 15, 2018, in the Main Reading Room of the Linda Hall Library. The lecture: Like the protagonist of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, scientists have long sought to unravel the hidden laws of nature and harness their knowledge to create new forms of life. The 20th century witnessed the birth of molecular genetics–the field of biology focused on DNA and its role in heredity, genetic variation, and disease–and culminated in completion of the Human Genome Project, which decoded all 3 billion letters of the human genome. But until recently, the ability to go one step beyond reading DNA and rewrite DNA, directly in living organisms, remained elusive. Now, with a revolutionary technology called CRISPR that was discovered in a most unexpected way, we have entered a new era of precision genetic manipulation, in which diseases and cancers could be erased in patients, but so too could heritable genetic changes be engineered in human embryos. What will we choose to do with this awesome power? The speaker: Samuel Sternberg is a protein-RNA biochemist and CRISPR expert. Dr. Sternberg’s doctoral research in the laboratory of Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Dr. Jennifer Doudna focused on the mechanism of DNA targeting by RNA-guided bacterial immune systems (CRISPR—Cas9) and on the development of these systems for genome engineering applications. Dr. Sternberg’s work has been published in the journals Nature, Science, and Cell, and has been covered in The New York Times, Science News, The Scientist, and various other news outlets. He is also the co-author, along with Jennifer Doudna, of A Crack in Creation, a popular science book about the discovery, development, and applications of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology. In 2018, he started his own research laboratory at Columbia University as assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. Sam received his B.A. in biochemistry from Columbia University in 2007, graduating summa cum laude, and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2014. Video produced by The VideoWorks of Roeland Park, Kansas.
