The Twist of Life: Toward an Understanding of Asymmetry in the Biological World and in Nature

Many designs in nature are astonishing and beautiful, like the spirals of the pine cones and the sea shells. The patterns can be explained by the effects of the biochemical and the physical world. A wonderful example of this is the DNA helix and the fact that it was a fundamental discovery of the past century in molecular biology. Biochemists have known for some time that in living tissues  organic compounds have a pure handedness. Louis Pasteur believed that if he could only discover how nature introduced the asymmetry into organic compounds, he would be close to the secret of life itself.

From mirrors' reflections to living molecules, the course will cover symmetry and asymmetry, in plants and animals and in the human body, which includes left handedness. We will discuss the origin of asymmetry in life, and some pharmaceutical implications.

The course will be in seminar  form with participation of members encouraged. The required textbook is The New Ambidextrous Universe, Martin Gardner, W.H.  Freeman and Co. (Publisher). "What makes Gardner so appealing is his ease of exploring deep ideas and making them accessible to the interested but non-technical reader."- Los Angeles Times

Class is limited to 15 members.

CLAUDE JANEWAY earned a B.A. at Barnard College, and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Tufts University in Boston.  She spent two years in James D. Watson's laboratory in Harvard (discoverer of DNA helix) and did research at Harvard Medical School, Brown University, Dartmouth Medical School and the University of Vermont.  Her research interests were the relationship between structure and function of proteins and later DNA recombination.