VISIT WITH A NOBEL LAUREATE
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1993 16:33:18 -0400
From: Linda Delzeit <ad683@yfn.ysu.edu>
Subject: Announcement of Dr. Berg
NATIONAL PUBLIC TELECOMPUTING NETWORK
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ACADEMY ONE SPECIAL EVENT
A Virtual Visit with Nobel Laureate, Dr. Paul Berg
In this announcement:
1. Details on how to participate in the "virtual visit"
2. A biographical sketch of Dr. Berg
3. A paper written by Dr. Berg entitled, "DEALING WITH GENES"
4. Details on how to subscribe to the listserve that will be used.
5. Details on the IRC chat commands
========================================================
DETAILS ON HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE VIRTUAL VISIT
General Description of the event:
---------------------------------
When: Tuesday, September 21, 1993
Dr. Paul Berg, one of the principal pioneers in "gene
splicing" will be meeting with high school students in the
Los Angeles area to answer questions they might have on
the subject of gene splicing and the structure and function
of DNA..
Academy One will be extending this meeting to the online
community. The meeting will begin at 0900 PDST. A summary
of the progress of the meeting will be posted to a special
listserve (a-1special@nptn.org) approximately every 15 minutes.
Schools can subscribe to this listserve following the directions
below and read the updates as they are released or when it is
convenient to them.
At 1000 PDST an IRC chat on the YFN will begin on channel
#Berg. Schools may come together in this electronic "cafe" to
talk with each other about genetics and to "electronically" join
the meeting in progress in California.
Students from the California audience will be able to view
the IRC chat via an overhead projection system. This will make
the "local meeting" an international meeting via the online
environment and Dr. Berg will be able to answer questions from
schools in other areas during this IRC chat.
SPECIAL NOTE:
------------
This is very much an experimental project. There are many things
which could cause the meeting in California to NOT be able to
electronically join the IRC chat on the YFN. If that is the case,
it is hoped that those schools in the IRC will proceed with a
meaningful discussion on their own. If this even is successful,
there is the potential of holding future "virtual visits" with such
Nobel Laureates.
Opportunity:
-----------
Questions from students can be sent to linda@nptn.org and
they will be given to Dr. Berg prior to the beginning of
the meeting. If students have questions which come to mind after
reading Dr. Berg's DEALING WITH GENES, they may send them in
advance of the IRC and Dr. Berg can respond to those students
directly in the electronic environment.
Picture of Dr. Berg
-------------------
A picture of Dr. Berg is available in GIF format for those schools
who have the ability to receive, decode, and view it. Request this
file from ldelzei@eis.calstate.edu and it will be forwarded to your
e.mail box.
The IRC chat details:
---------------------
Schools need both the ability to telnet/dial into the Youngstown
Free-Net (YFN) and an account on that system in order to
participate in the IRC chat. Schools should secure these accounts
as quickly as possible. In order to get an account...
Telnet to: yfn.ysu.edu
Login as: visitor
Go to the administration building and register online. THEN be sure
to mail in the registration form. This must be received by the
Youngstown Free-Net at least two days prior to the event. Your
password will be activated and you will be able to participate.
Directions to the IRC are located on the YFN. Type "go irc" and
you will be in the correct location. At the end of this announcement
is a brief list of the most common IRC commands:
========================================================
A Biographical Sketch of Dr. Paul Berg
--------------------------------------
Dr. Paul Berg, Nobel Laureate, is Willson Professor of
Biochemistry at Stanford University School of Medicine
and director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and
Genetic Medicine.
Dr. Berg, one of the principal pioneers in "gene splicing"
and his colleagues Drs. Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger
were honored with the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for
developing methods that make it possible to map the structure
and function of DNA.
According to the NEW YORK TIMES the scientists' work "has had
a revolutionary impact on the understanding of the genetics of
all living things and on the ability to manipulate the genetic
material of cells from any species."
In quoting the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, THE TIMES
added that "Berg was cited for his fundamental studies of the
biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to
recombinant DNA."
Work on the genetic apparatus that directs the synthesis of proteins
earned Dr. Berg the Eli Lilly Award in Biochemistry in
1959 and the California Scientist of the Year Award in 1963. He
has twice been honored with the Henry J Kaiser Award for
Excellence in Teaching at Stanford University School of Medicine
and has won the Roche Institute for Molecular Biology V.D. Mania
Prize, the Sarasota Medical Awards for Achievement and
Excellence, the Annual Award of the Gairdner Foundation, the
Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, and the New York
Academy of Sciences Award. He also has won the American
Association for the Advancement of Science Scientific Freedom and
Responsibility Award, the National Medal of Science, and the National
Library of Medicine Medal.
Dr. Berg, who earned his bachelor's degree at Penn State in 1948
and his doctoral degree at Western Reserve University in 1952,
was named a Penn State Distinguished Alumnus in 1974 and served
as an Alumni Fellow in 1976. He holds honorary doctor of science
degrees from the University of Rochester, Yale University,
Washington University, and Oregon State University.
A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1966, he also is a past president
of the American Society of Biological Chemists, a foreign member of
the French Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society, an elected
member of the American Philosophical Society and the American
Academy of Microbiology, Honorary member of Alpha Omega
Alpha Honor Medical Society, an elected associate member of
EMBO, a member of the American Academy of Achievement,
and Chairman of the National Advisory Committee of the Human
Genome Project.
Dr. Berg joined the faculty of the Stanford University School of
Medicine in 1959 and was chairman of the Department of
Biochemistry from 1969 to 1974. Named Willson Professor
of Biochemistry in 1970, he has been director of the Beckman
Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine since 1985.
========================================================
DEALING WITH GENES
Paul Berg
Genetics, once an arcane branch of biology, has become
front-page news. The business sections of daily newspapers
regularly report the ups and downs of the biotechnology
industry. Medical reporters describe the latest experiments
and their possible significance to disease diagnosis and
treatment. Economic and scientific pundits see in the new
genetics an answer to economic woes and a rebirth of the
United States' competitive advantage. Environmentalists,
religious figures, sociologists, and philosophers are spending
their time and energy considering the implications of genetics.
Government regulators worry about how to control the materials
and organisms produced by new genetic techniques. Patent
attorneys and judges are pondering the question of which
organisms should be patentable.
Underlying all this tangential activity are extraordinary
scientific findings, findings that place our understanding of
the mechanisms of inheritance at the molecular level. No longer
is the unit of inheritance, the gene, merely an abstract notion.
Genes and the chromosomes of which they are a part are now
describable in precise chemical terms. Even more significantly,
genes can be manipulated and altered by chemical methods in the
laboratory and reintroduced into the cells of living organisms.
Much of our current and sophisticated understanding of genes
and their function had its origins around 1945 and extended into
the early 1970's. This period's great achievements include, first,
the recognition that, in all living things, genes reside in large
molecules called DNA; second, the description of the chemical
structure of DNA; and, third, how the DNA structure specifies an
individual's traits, such as color, shape, susceptibility to
particular diseases, as well as those functions that enable us to
digest food and use it for growth and energy.
The second period, starting roughly around 1970 and continuing
through the present, began with the development of methods that are
now referred to as molecular genetics, or more popularly as GENETIC
ENGINEERING. These revolutionary methods allow the isolation and
characterization of individual genes from any organisms, be it
microbe, plant, or animal. As a result, we now know the differences
in gene structure that account for many human diseases such as
cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia and thalassemias,
Huntington's disease, etc. Indeed, most if not all human diseases
are genetic in origin. These powerful insights have led to new
methods and novel diagnostic tools for detecting inherited human
diseases.
The significance of such dramatic improvements in diagnostic
techniques and of the potential for new therapies is enormous.
More than 4000 human disorders are known to be caused by defects
in one or a few genes. Many of these disorders are debilitating
or lethal. Increasingly, medical research is revealing genetic
components in other common diseases. Cancer, for instance, is
fundamentally a genetic disease that involves changes in DNA in
the cancerous tissues. Heart disease and one of its important
determinants, blood cholesterol levels, are affected by genes. So
too are susceptibilities to rheumatoid arthritis, schizophrenia,
manic-depressive psychosis, and juvenile diabetes, to name but
a few.
The deeper understanding emerging from current molecular
genetics reflects the facts that we can deal directly with the
fundamental source of the properties that distinguish living from
nonliving things - DNA molecules. But being able to deal with
genes means more than simply understanding them. The science of
molecular genetics also allows us to alter genes. DNA molecules
can be changed, mutations can be introduced or eliminated, and the
altered genes can be reintroduced into certain living experimental
organisms. Such techniques are currently being applied to bacteria,
yeast, some plants, fruit flies, and mammals. There is also
substantial reason to believe that the new knowledge can lead to
innovative and effective therapy for diseases of humans.
========================================================
Special Events Listserve:
------------------------
Academy One has a Special Events listserve that is designed to be
used for brief periods of time for special events. When the special
event is over, the subscribers are deleted and the listserve is used
for another special event.
A listserve allows many users to send messages to each other. Unlike
a newsgroup or a conference, these messages are sent directly to the
subscriber's mailbox. You could get a lot of mail in a short period of
time with special event listserves, so if you subscribe you need to be
careful and watch the amount of mail you are getting so your mailbox
does not overflow.
How to Subscribe to the Listserve:
----------------------------------
Send electronic mail to: listserv@nptn.org
Subject line is blank (put in a single space and hit return)
Body of the message is:
subscribe a-1special <your name>
If you want to receive a copy of each message you post to the list,
you need to add a line that reads:
set a-1special mail ack
Example:
subscribe a-1special Linda Smith
set a-1special mail ack
When you want to send a message to all subscribers, you must send your
message to:
a-1special@nptn.org
When you want to unsubscribe from the listserve, send e.mail to:
listserv@nptn.org that says: unsubscribe
========================================================
SHORT LIST OF IRC COMMANDS FOR THE YOUNGSTOWN FREE-
NET IRC
Below is a brief listing of common multi-user chat commands.
For a complete listing of commands while in IRC, type /HELP.
For more information about a given command, type /HELP <command>.
/BYE: allows you to leave multi-user chat
/CLEAR: clears your screen off
/HELP: lists available commands
/IGNORE <user>: allows you to ignore messages from a given user
/INVITE <user> invites someone (currently in multi-user chat) to your
table
/JOIN <channel>: join the conversation at a table
/LIST: lists all active channels and their topics (if they have one)
/MSG <user> <msg>: sends brief private message to a user at your table
/NICK <nickname>: allows you to adopt a nickname
(/WHOIS will still show your real user id)
/QUERY <nickname>: initiates private talk with someone at your table
/TOPIC <topic>: sets the topic for your chat table
/WHO: tells you who is present in multi-user chat
/WHOIS <nickname>: gives you true identity for user <nickname>
