2 Nobel Prize-winners Discuss Origins of Life at UAlbany

Two Nobel Laureates will discuss the chemistry that produced the origins of life when they serve as the keynote lecturers at Albany 2013: The 18th Conversation, presented by University at Albany’s departments of Chemistry and Biological Sciences on June 11- 15. The event will draw more than 300 delegates from over 20 countries to the UAlbany Uptown Campus.

Jack Szostak from Harvard University and Ada Yonath from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, will speak on June 12 at 8 p.m. in Lecture Center 18.

The lectures are open to the public!

Szostak is the co-editor of the book, The Origins of Life (2010).

The 18th Conversation is sponsored by the University’s departments of Chemistry and Biological Sciences and the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which has funded the Conversation since 1981.

For more information, email Dr.Ramaswamy Sarma at rhs07@albany.edu.

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Junk DNA as Cultural Metaphor

French cultural theorist and genetic engineer (specializing in the DNA of beans) Thierry Bardini will be the keynote speaker of the 10th Annual English Graduate Student Conference, 5:30 PM, Friday 3/30.

The conference, entitled "WASTE," at the University at Albany downtown campus, all day, Friday 3/30.

Thierry's new book is Junkware (2010): "Examining cybernetic structures from genetic codes to communication networks, Thierry Bardini explores the idea that most of culture and nature, including humans, is composed of useless, but always potentially recyclable, material otherwise known as ‘junk.’ Junkware examines the cultural history that led to the encoding and decoding of life itself and the contemporary turning of these codes into a commodity."

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Masha Gessen: Declaring War on Her Own Body

Masha Gessen, who visits this coming Thursday, writes candidly about her genetic history and her painful decision to have a double mastectomy after discovering that she is predestined to develop a fatal form of breast cancer.

Jennifer Senior reviews her 2008 book Blood Matters in the New York Times.

"One of the wonders of the genome is how it enables us to time-travel, both backward and forward. Scribbled within it are clues to our ancestry, which can give us an emboldening sense of continuity, coherence, place — how marvelous to imagine ourselves the sons of Levi, the daughters of African queens! But scrawled within it, too, are clues about our future, which can be downright terrifying. Rather than expand our sense of possibilities, they foreshorten them. There are dread mutations slumbering in our cells. From our genes, we learn how we may die." More.

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Masha Gessen: Breasts Old and New

Masha Gessen, who visits 3/8, wrote an extraordinary series of articles for Slate in 2004 in advance of undergoing a double mastectomy in 2005 after discovering that she possessed a genetic mutation that predisposed her to a deadly form of breast cancer.

"All of this abstract talk about breasts—other women's breasts, breasts in general—is of limited application when I am trying to think about cutting off my own. So, it's time for full disclosure. For years, other people liked my breasts more than I did. The usual pubescent discomfort with a changing body lasted longer for me than it does for many women: I thought my breasts were too large, and, looking androgynous and liking it, I didn't particularly enjoy having breasts. Over the years, as I got into better shape, they actually got a bit smaller...." More.

A fuller discussion of her experiences (before and after) is presented in her book, Blood Matters: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene (2008).

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