The evolution of the genetic code: a work in progress
Lecturer Dieter Söll is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and an Associate Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization. After a Ph. D. at the Technische Hochschule Stuttgart he was a postdoctoral fellow with H.G. Khorana at the University of Wisconsin, where he participated in the elucidation of the Genetic Code. In 1967 he joined the faculty of Yale University where he is currently working on the expansion of the Genetic Code.
After its elucidation in the 1960s Francis Crick described the Genetic Code (with twenty amino acids) as the result of a “Frozen Accident” incapable of further evolution. Genetic, biochemical and molecular biological studies in the intervening years provided evidence that the genetic code is still evolving and comprised of twenty-two natural amino acids.
Based on the realization that protein plasticity is a feature of living cells, manmade expansion of the genetic code has begun by adding nonstandard amino acids to the repertoire of the cell.
This lecture will describe how the genetic code is thought to have evolved, and what the present evolutionary developments mean for the creation of new organisms in the realm of synthetic biology.
Plats: Stockholm
Tid: 18.00 - 19.00
Datum: 2010-03-10
Lokal: Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien, Beijersalen