Newswise — Evolution has helped solve murder mysteries and has pinpointed the source of bioterrorism weapons. It helps scientists understand disease susceptibility and develop new, more effective medicines, pesticides, and other products crucial to modern life.
NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences is a leading supporter of this research, including recent work on antibiotic resistance, the structure of our brains, and why about half of the adults in the world can digest milk.
For details about these and other cutting-edge topics in evolutionary biology, contact the director of this research at NIGMS:
Irene Eckstrand, Ph.D.National Institute of General Medical SciencesNational Institutes of Health
Dr. Eckstrand also organizes the annual lecture series called Evolution and Medicine. This year's lectures, in Washington, D.C., include talks on:
"¢The 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body. The speaker is co-discoverer of Tiktaalik, a 375-million-year-old fossil fish thought to be the missing link between fish and land animals.
"¢How evolution helps officials solve crimes and respond to emerging diseases and bioterrorism. The speaker is a scientist whose work helped convict a doctor of attempted second-degree murder for injecting his victim with blood from an HIV-positive patient.
Details of the lectures, which begin February 9, are at http://www.nigms.nih.gov/News/Meetings/EvolutionSeries2009.htm. Live webcasts will be available and archived at http://videocast.nih.gov/.
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