© 2004 The American Genetic Association
From Genes to Genomes: The Next Century of Heredity in America
From the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, U-3043, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269–3043
Address correspondence to Kent E. Holsinger at the address above, or e-mail: kent{at}darwin.eeb.uconn.edu.
The origins of the American Genetic Association predate the rediscovery of Mendel, with Willet Hays' suggestion in 1899 that a professional association devoted to the study of hybridization and genetics was needed (Troyer and Stoehr 2003). Four years later the American Breeders Association was born, and in 1913 the American Breeders association became the American Genetic Association. Not until 1919 was the Genetics Society (Great Britain) founded, six years after the American Breeders Magazine became the Journal of Heredity. The Genetics Society of America was founded even later – 1931. Thus, the American Genetic Association is the oldest professional society devoted to the study of heredity. Its history and evolution mirror that of the entire field (Crow 2004).
In the century since the Association was founded, the field of genetics has exploded, and an Association whose initial focus was very much on the practical problems of plant and animal breeding,1 has evolved into one whose interests cover the gamut of modern organismal genetics: from comparative genome analyses of mosquitoes (Severson et al. 2004) to the genetic structure of yucca moth populations (Leebens-Mack & Pellmyr 2004) to the genetics of flower color in morning glories (Zufall & Rausher 2003) to the mating system of palms (Gaiotto et al. 2003) and on and on and on. Who could have imagined that the field of genetics would expand in so many directions in the 20th century? Who among the geneticists gathered in December 1903 could have predicted the profound changes in the Association to which they gave birth?
The American Genetic Association held its Centennial Meeting on the campus of the University of Connecticut in July 2003.2 The papers collected here, which are derived from presentations at that meeting, give us clues about a few of the exciting new avenues that 21st century genetics will explore–studies not just of a single human genome sequence, but of the patterns genetic variation that make each of us unique, patterns whose elucidation will promote the development of individualized approaches to human health and medicine (Kidd et al. 2004); the application of sophisticated mathematical and computational tools to unravel the evolutionary history of populations and species and to distinguish the roles of selection, mutation, and migration in evolutionary change (Wakeley 2004); investigations into the evolution of complex phenotypes, leading to an improved understanding of the genetic basis of evolutionary novelty (Jockusch & Ober 2004); and analyses that lead beyond understanding the evolution of nucleotide sequences to a mechanistic, molecular description of processes affecting the structure and evolution of entire chromosomes (O'Neill et al. 2004). And these are only a few of the avenues that lie open before us. Any reader of the Journal of Heredity could easily identify at least half a dozen more, each one as promising, as challenging, and as exciting as those included here.
No one can predict what new discoveries will be made or how the Association will be transformed in the 21st century, but of this much we can be sure: The next century of heredity will be remarkable. We will investigate phenomena not yet imagined with tools not yet conceived. And in the next century the American Genetics Association will continue to play its part, as it has in the century just past, by ensuring that the core of biological research and education always includes the study of heredity.
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Acknowledgments |
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Kent E. Holsinger organized the American Genetics Association 2003 Annual Meeting and Centennial Celebration at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, July 18–30, 2003. This introduction accompanies papers originally presented at that conference.
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Footnotes |
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1 And, yes, as Crow (2004) describes, the Association had some early focus on eugenics as well.
2 Since the Association did not become the American Genetic Association until 1913, one could argue that the Association's first centennial should not be celebrated until 2013. I argue that we should regard 2013 as an opportunity for the Association to celebrate its second first centennial.
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References |
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 Top References |
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Crow JF, 2004. Genetics: alive and well. The first hundred years, as viewed through the pages of the Journal of Heredity. J Hered. 95:365-374.
Gaiotto FA, Grattapaglia D, Vencovsky R, 2003. Genetic structure, mating system, and long-distance gene flow in heart of palm (Euterpe edulis Mart.). J Hered. 94:399-406.
Kidd KK, Pakstis AJ, Speed WC, Kidd JR, 2004. Understanding human DNA sequence variation. J Hered. 95:406-420.
Jockusch EL, Ober KA, 2004. Hypothesis testing in evolutionary developmental biology: a case study from insect wings. J Hered. 95:382-396.
Leebens-Mack J, Pellmyr O, 2004. Patterns of genetic structure among populations of an oligophagous pollinating yucca moth (Tegeticula yuccasella). J Hered. 95:127-135.
O'Neill RJ, Eldridge MDB, Metcalfe CJ, 2004. Centromere dynamics and chromosome evolution in marsupials. J Hered. 95:375-381.
Severson DW, deBruyn B, Lovin DD, Brown SE, Knudson DL, Morlais I, 2004. Comparative genome analysis of the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegyptii with Drosophila melanogaster and the malaria vector mosquito Anopheles gambiae. J Hered. 95:103-113.
Troyer AF, Stoehr H, 2003. Willet M. Hays, great benefactor to plant breeding and the and the founder of our Association. J Hered. 94:435-441.
Wakeley J, 2004. Recent trends in population genetics: more data! more math! simple models? J Hered. 95:397-405.
Zufall RA, Rausher MD, 2003. The genetic basis of flower color polymorphism in the common morning glory (Ipomoea purpurea). J Hered. 94:442-448.
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