The New Genetics Society President
Veronica van Heyningen
MRC Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh
It is with great pleasure and some trepidation that I take over as the new President of the Genetics Society. Genetics has held seductive sway over me for nearly half a century, since the earliest fruit fly crosses we set up at school. I have been immersed in the topic since then, with Genetics Part II in Cambridge, somatic cell genetics DPhil in Oxford, postdoctoral work in Edinburgh at the MRC Mammalian Genome Unit around the time Southern blots were developed there and then climbing the career ladder at my current lab, the MRC Human Genetics Unit. And what fantastic, astonishing progress the subject has made within those years!
From existing as a quiet research backwater, genetics has become a major tool in all biological research. Advances in human genetics mirror the fantastic voyage in other areas, from our wonderful insights into Caenorhabditis elegans, which I first heard about as an undergraduate when Sidney Brenner announced that he was going to delve into nervous system development by studying this tiny 1000 cell nematode. Little did even he imagine (but perhaps he did?) that three decades later we would have the genomic sequence of this worm, and now there are about 50 animal genomes accessible in Ensembl. Gone are the days of mapping genes – an early international endeavour - now we are mapping diseases and traits onto pre-existing genomic assemblies. These advances have emerged accompanied by giant steps in quantitative genetics, and these in turn have relied on progress in high-throughput technologies, supporting bioinformatics and database sharing. Progress in proteomics and the use of mass-spectrometry have permitted network building and this is revolutionizing our view of biology. Observations of evolutionary conservation and divergence have emerged from this sea of information, and the mechanisms of gene regulation are yielding up their secrets. I have to say that I am biased in believing that human studies provide wonderful deep functional information about genetic mechanisms, but have to concede that we would not understand most mechanisms properly without the use of model systems, which of course include an growing menagerie of vertebrates and invertebrates including classical organisms like Drosophila, Yeast and plants have also yielded fascinating insights, for example through the discovery of RNA interference leading to a whole new vista of RNA regulatory functions.
There is no sign of a slowdown in the genetics revolution. Great strides continue to be made in common disease genetics, third generation sequencing technologies that will lead to the capacity to sequence the complete genome of thousands or millions of individuals within the next few years. Stem cell technologies are racing forward and the development of cell therapy for degenerative diseases is on the horizon. Less anthropocentric avenues focus on deciphering complex microbiomes and ecological niches. Advances in all these areas have encouraged progress in bioinformatics and computation.
As a predominantly academic organisation the Genetics Society must continue to play a key role in conveying these new advances to young biologists. Our major mechanism for this is to organise and facilitate meetings with themes broad and deep, and to ensure that as many people as possible benefit from attending these. In addition to the two main meetings each year, the Society co-organises high profile conferences with other groups (for example developmental and cell biologists) and we also support a number of organism-specific interest groups. There is a generous provision of bursaries and support for young members to attend meetings, carry out fieldwork or get specialist training. I am most impressed by the constant efforts of GS committee members and office staff to ensure that these activities are supported and fine-tuned, as the focus of the science and the research environment evolve. We must all work together to promote the Genetics Society as it moves towards its centenary.