As announced last month, the Second Nature event series is about to begin and the very first event is this Thursday.
Our first guest is Phil Holliger from the Medical Research Council Molecular Biology Lab in Cambridge. Phil works with ancient DNA: DNA samples retrieved from specimens of forensic, paleontological or archaeological interest. DNA naturally degrades over time, making it very difficult to amplify and analyse, and Phil will be talking about a new way to rescue genetic information from damaged DNA, which he recently tried out on a 60,000 year-old cave bear. After the talk will be a discussion on this or anything else you care to ask Phil.
No specialist knowledge is required, and entrance is completely free, so please do come along and see what it’s like. To come, you will need a Second Life avatar. Getting one is free: go to www.secondlife.com/join to get started. If you need any help getting started or get lost when you are in Second Life, by all means email me and I will come along and teleport you to the safe haven of Second Nature!
Title: New polymerases for old DNA: molecular breeding of polymerases for damage bypass and amplification of ancient DNA
Speaker: Dr Phil Holliger, MRC, Cambridge, UK
Location: Second Nature Island
Date: Thursday September 13th, 2007
Time: 11am SLT/2pm EST/6pm GMT/7pm BST
SL Contact: Joanna Wombat
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