College of Science and Technology, 13th Annual Carroll Lecture Series

Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006        Turley Center Ballroom

Dr. Georgia M. Dunston, Professor and Director of Molecular Genetics in the National Human Genome Center at Howard University, presents:

HUMAN GENOME VARIATION IN HEALTH DISPARITIES:

•  "Moving from Population-Based to Personalized Medicine and Individualized Healthcare for All"
•  12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m., Turley Center Ballroom
• Preceded by light lunch refreshments at noon.
• Admission is free and open to the public.
• "What Does ‘Race’ Have to Do with It?"
• 7:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. , Turley Center Ballroom
• Admission is free and open to the public.
• Public school teachers, students and the Fairmont community are encouraged to attend.

Two open discussions with the speaker (open to all faculty, staff and students) will be held during the day, as well:

•  Open discussion on any topic:  9:30 -10:30 am, 314 TC
• Open discussion on Science, Spirituality and Religion, 3:00 - 4:00 pm, 312 HHH

Abstract:

Despite significant advances in the treatment of common complex diseases, such as heart disease and cancer, African-Americans still carry a disproportionate burden of health disparities in the USA. However, the prevailing mind-set that accepts stereotyped human “racesâ€� may be false and misleading.  Results of the Human Genome Project challenge the traditional concepts of “race and ethnicityâ€� as legitimate biological groups. What, then, will be the long-term effect of knowledge gained from the Human Genome Project on the directions of medical research for these diseases?

The presentation addresses genome-based data that forces a shift in thinking, from treating populations as basic biological groups, to recognizing individuals as the relevant biological units. In the process, the focus of medical research turns from population-based toward personalized, genome-based identification of health disparities.

Speaker biography:

GEORGIA M. DUNSTON is Professor and Director of Molecular Genetics in the National Human Genome Center (NHGC) at Howard University. She has been on the faculty of the Howard University School of Medicine since 1972 and was a Founding Director of the NHGC. She received a B.S. degree in Biology from Norfolk State University; an M.S. in Biology from Tuskegee University, and a Ph.D. in Human Genetics from the University of Michigan. She conducted postdoctoral work in Tumor Immunology at the National Institutes of Health, in the Laboratory of Immunodiagnosis, National Cancer Institute. In 1985 her interests in the biomedical significance of genomic polymorphisms in African Americans led her to establish the Human Immunogenetics Laboratory at Howard University.

Dr. Dunston has published several articles in professional journals on genetic variation in human major histocompatibility antigens and other genetic markers in African Americans. She has been invited to speak on her research at universities and conferences throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Dr. Dunston has served on the National Advisory Council for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; the Genetic Basis of Disease Review Committee for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and as a member of the National Academy of Sciences Review Committee on the Human Genome Diversity Project. Her research interests in the biomedical implications of human genome variation are at the vanguard of current efforts at Howard University to build national and international research collaborations focusing on the genetics of diseases common in African Americans and other people of the African Diaspora.

About the Carroll lectures

This lecture series, co-sponsored by the Fairmont State Foundation and the President's Office, is organized by the College of Science and Technology in honor of Robert L. Carroll who passed away on April 13, 1997, in Charleston, S. C., at age 87. Dr. Carroll was born January 15, 1910, in Three Lakes, Washington. He received an A.B. Education degree from Fairmont State College in 1933, an M.S. in Mathematics from West Virginia University in 1940, and a Ph.D. degree in Mathematical Physics from West Virginia University in 1944.

Dr. Carroll was on the faculty of Fairmont State College as a Professor of Physics and head of the Physics Department from 1946 to 1956. His other positions include Associate Project Leader of Proximity Fuze Research with the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C., Chief Engineer and Dean of Academics at the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, Patuxent River, Md. (where one of his students was Allan Shepherd), and senior scientist and analyst with various government research and testing operations. From 1965 to 1977 he was head of the Department of Physics at Baptist College in Charleston, S.C.

Dr. Carroll’s numerous awards include American Men of Science, Who’s Who in American Education, Two Thousand Men of Achievement (1972), and the Ordnance Development Award for Naval Research.