DNA and brain plasticity drive individual differences

If you’ve ever wondered what makes you unique among human beings, a one-off University of Queensland event on Monday, September 23 could provide a few clues.

2020 Vision: Creating the individual starts at 6.30pm in Mayne Hall on the St Lucia campus. Admission is free, including refreshments, but bookings are essential (telephone 3365 3367).

Professors John Mattick and Perry Bartlett, international experts in molecular biology and neuroscience, will look at some of the biological reasons for individuality — including factors affecting behaviour and intelligence.

Scientists have unravelled many of the mysteries, they say. But today’s volume of knowledge will seem insignificant when compared with what we’ll know in the year 2020. It could lead to revolutionary advances in medicine and raise some important ethical issues and philosophical challenges.

Professor Mattick, Co-director of the University’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience, will speak on Biological software — inherited DNA, which encodes the complex software driving an individual’s growth and development.

“The Human Genome Project and other projects cataloguing the genetic and molecular basis of life are yielding some surprising new insights into human biology and evolution,” he said.

“But by 2020, computational analysis and modelling of genomic information and cellular differentiation may have transformed current ideas on information systems in general.”

Professor Bartlett recently left the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne to join the University as Foundation Professor of Molecular Neuroscience.

His talk on The plastic brain will focus on the brain’s capacity to change continually in response to the environment. By 2020, he says, we may understand some of the mechanisms – such as how new nerve cells are created and how new connections form between nerve cells in response to environmental cues.

“Understanding these processes may affect the way we structure the environment to promote healthy neural function,” Professor Bartlett said. “It may also lead to new drugs which could help repair damaged or diseased brains, or retard ageing.”

Media: For more information, contact Professor Mattick (telephone 07 3365 4446, email j.mattick@imb.uq.edu.au); Professor Bartlett (telephone 07 3365 2905 or 0413 850 683, email p.bartlett@uq.edu.au) or Moya Pennell at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2846, email m.pennell@uq.edu.au).