The Revolution in Genetics: Understanding the A-B-C's of "A-C-T-G" • Jose Lopez, Ph.D. About the Lecture Only about a half century old, the field of molecular genetics (also sometimes referred to as "genomics", "genetic engineering", or "biotechnology") has revolutionized the way we view living organisms and carry out research in various biological disciplines -- medicine, microbiology, ecology, and evolution. Today's presentation will summarize the fundamental concepts, qualities, and quirks of the hereditary material, composed primarily of the informational molecules DNA and RNA, and along with proteins, are part and parcel of our every cell and vital organ, and also affect our interactions with the environment. New and intriguing case studies that apply molecular genetics theory and methods, and cut across multiple disciplines of biology, will be highlighted. Also, the speaker's current marine molecular biology research on the characterization of new gene sequences that may affect the biosynthesis and regulation of marine natural product biosynthesis and diverse microbial communities that live within sponges will be discussed. Lastly, these topics are placed in the context of the imminent arrival of several new biotechnological institutes, such as Scripps Research and Torrey Pines Institute, to our local area. About the Speaker A major theme of Dr. Lopez's research aims to understand fundamental processes of molecular biology, evolution, and biodiversity. Dr. Jose Lopez is a molecular evolutionary geneticist. He received a B.S. at Georgia Tech, a M.S. in molecular biology under pioneer cytogeneticist Herb Taylor at Florida State University, and a Ph.D. in molecular evolution under Stephen J. O'Brien at the National Cancer Institute/George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Dr. Lopez applied his training to problems confronting some of the most endangered habitats in the oceans, coral reefs, and took his first postdoctoral fellowship studying the Caribbean coral sibling species complex of Monstastraea annularis ("star coral") at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in the Republic of Panama. Following a postdoc with Dr. Shirley Pomponi at HBOI, Dr. Lopez has continued molecular biology research on marine microbes, genomic evolution, and genes involved in natural product biosynthesis. Dr. Lopez has published over 30 scientific papers and been awarded grants that total over $1 million from the National Science Foundation and Florida Sea Grant.

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