News release issued March 12, 2001, effective immediately.
For media inquiries, contact Caroline Booth Lara, Communications Specialist, (580) 224-6379.
  email: cblara@noble.org

Note: This event occurred in 2001. Please see our news releases section for upcoming events.

Human Genome Researcher to Speak in Ardmore

ARDMORE -- Within the next two years scientists plan to finish mapping the human genome, which, in essence, is the blueprint for human life.

The mapping is now more than 90 percent complete thanks to combined research efforts carried out at 20 laboratories worldwide as part of the Human Genome Project. One of the key players in this landmark effort is Dr. Bruce Roe, a research professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma.

Roe will discuss his research and the implications of mapping the human genetic code Thursday, April 26, at 7 p.m. at the Goddard Center in downtown Ardmore. The program is free to the public and is part of the Noble Foundation’s ongoing Profiles and Perspectives community enrichment series.

Roe, who grew up on Long Island, New York, earned his undergraduate degree from Hope College and received his master’s and Ph.D. at Western Michigan University. He held a faculty position at Kent State University and spent a year in England, working in the lab of Nobel Prize winning researcher Frederick Sanger, before joining the University of Oklahoma staff in 1980.

Since that time, thanks to the efforts of Roe and his colleagues, OU has become a leading institution in the world of genomic research.

Roe’s research centers on automated methods for DNA sequence analysis and, as Director of the University of Oklahoma’s Advanced Center for Genome Technology (ACGT), he leads a team of 60 researchers who played a major role in the worldwide Human Genome Project.

His team focused its research on human chromosome number 22 and other regions of interest in the mouse genome. The team is now concentrating its efforts on mapping complete genomes of various bacterial organisms that directly affect human health.

The human genome consists of approximately three billion bits of genetic information. Understanding that information could lead to dramatic advances in predicting disease vulnerability as well as providing innovative treatments for many human afflictions.

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Photo: Dr. Bruce Roe (1) | Dr. Bruce Roe (2)

The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, headquartered in Ardmore, Okla., is a non-profit organization conducting agricultural, forage biotechnological, and plant biology research; providing grants to numerous non-profit charitable, educational and health organizations; and assisting farmers and ranchers through educational and consultative agricultural programs.

To learn more, check out the Noble Foundation Web site at http://www.noble.org.

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