The Faculty of Medicine and Medical Sciences at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik organized on March 31, 2011 a conference entitled “The Human Genome: in the search of our identity?” given by Prof. Christian Andres, INSERM U930, Faculty of Medicine at François-Rabelais de Tours University and Biochemistry Laboratory, Bretonneau Hospital – Regional and University Hospital Center of Tours - France.

Prof. Andres started his conference with an overview on DNA, pointing out that it consists of nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms. He added that the main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information, highlighting that DNA segments that carry genetic information are called genes and are involved in regulating the use of this genetic information. He also tackled how DNA is formed of simple units called nucleotides, wherein an entire sequence of DNA has 3.2 billion nucleotides. Exploring this sequence has enabled experts to carry out comparisons of DNA sequences of various living organisms. He pointed out that “when we compare the genome of actual human beings, we observe a difference of around 1 nucleotide in 1000 on average. These differences represent the polymorphism of the human DNA. This concept is used for instance by forensics to identify a suspect from his DNA”.

Prof. Andres concluded: “The analysis of these data is still in its early stages of development. The dream of medical doctors is to improve medical care and diagnosis of several diseases due to the meticulous research in terms of DNA sequences”.