Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting| Santa Cruz 2018

Genome Biophysics: Integrating Genomics and Biophysics to Understand Structural and Functional Aspects of Genomes

Tuesday Speaker Abstracts

From Big DNA Molecules to Big Data David C Schwartz ;

1 University of Wisconsin-Madison, Chemistry; Genetics, Madison, Wisconsin, United States Contemporary genome analysis uses single nucleic acid molecules, either directly measured, or measured after amplification, for gaining new biological insights into single cells and human populations in ways that are now functionalizing the non-genic portion of the human genome. The challenge of achieving comprehensive analysis that structurally elucidates the entire human genome requires addressing the massively pervasive repetitive elements of human genomes using single molecules analytes within integrated high-throughput systems. This challenge led to our development of Optical Mapping systems. As part of this vision, we have advanced a nascent biophysical approach by taking steps to migrate molecular discoveries into systems capable of grappling with the complex regions harbored by human and cancer genomes. Within this context, I will provide an introduction to human and cancer genomes and describe the history of Optical Mapping with emphasis given to detailing the many genomic challenges requiring synergistic development efforts across many fields to highlight an example where molecular discoveries were advanced via system design and, in turn, where systems were advanced by new molecular insights. Given this contextualized background, I will then describe research vignettes from our group and offer some thoughts about what the future may hold for new breakthroughs in genomics via biophysical approaches.

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