Our Living Code: The Past, Present, and Future of the Human Genome

Catalog description

The complexities of human life and disease are ultimately encoded with the 3 billion basepairs of our shared human genome. But our genetic code is no static list of A, T, C, and G's. It has expanded dramatically over the course of human evolution, changes constantly throughout our own lives, and increasingly can be intentionally manipulated by humans ourselves. Incorporating broad biologic, engineering, medical, and ethical approaches, we will dive into the dynamic complexity of the human genome, for instance investigating its development over the ~4 billion year history of genetically encoded life on earth, its mapping through the Human Genome Project, its application to modern medicine, and its potential synthetic future through increasingly powerful genetic engineering tools. No particular depth of background knowledge is required, and the course will begin with a brief primer on molecular biology and genetics, with additional relevant foundational topics introduced throughout the quarter. Assignments will largely focus on open ended questions about the past, present, and future of the human genome, applying quantitative frameworks and molecular biology and genetic engineering toolsets to arrive at educated guesses for questions such as: How many cell divisions stand between you and the last universal common ancestor?; How many genetic differences are there between two cells in your body? Or between you and the person next to you?; How would you create a new human gene? Why would anyone ever want to? By the end of the quarter we will have developed a broad based overview of our collective human genome's evolution, its use in modern medicine, and what coming years, decades, and millenia may have in store for the future of our living code.