2004 Sixth Annual Beckman Scholars Symposium

"The New Biology: Single Molecule Systems, Whole genomes"

David C. Schwartz, Ph.D.
Kellett Professor of Genetics and Chemistry
Director, Genomic Sciences Training Program
University of Wisconsin, Madison

Single molecule approaches are enabling researchers to understand mechanistic details and events that commonly evade traditional means that employ bulk analysis techniques, which obscure valuable distributions. With some notable exceptions, the single molecule approaches currently in use are quite toilsome and very low throughput. Given the modern requirements for large and complex datasets, a critical need for high-throughput single molecule approaches has emerged within the biological community. This need has emerged due to the recent appreciation of what large, complex datasets offer, when optimally interfaced with powerful analysis and experimental systems. In this regard, high-throughput, single molecule systems provide the necessary platform for whole genome analysis that is applicable to a broad range of biological problems. High-resolution, whole genome analysis has been gaining favor because we now have the means to grapple with the complexities of “real” biological systems, both locally and in terms of meaningful populations.

In this talk, I plan to present our single molecule platforms, and their application to a broad range of biological problems, both current and future.

Professor Schwartz has been working in the field of genomic analysis since 1975, when he was an undergraduate at Hampshire College in Amherst Massachusetts. During his senior year, he worked in a Harvard University laboratory using viscoelastic measurements to determine the sizes of a series of eukaryotic genomes. There, he conceived a radical approach for the electrophoretic separation of very large DNA molecules, which at the time was poorly received. After starting graduate school at University of California-San Diego, under the mentorship of Professor Bruno Zimm, he was able to further develop this concept. A transfer to Columbia University, under the mentorship of Professor Charles Cantor, enabled the creation of Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis, and a series of publications, which help to establish the basis for the recently completed Human Genome Initiative. Upon graduation from Columbia University (Dept. of Chemistry), Professor Schwartz became the first Staff Associate at The Carnegie Institution of Washington, Dept. of Embryology, who did not have prior post-doctoral experience. There he pioneered single molecule techniques to study DNA polymer dynamics during electrophoresis. In 1989, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at New York University, New York, and was later given an adjunct appointment in the Computer Science Department (Courant Institute for the Mathematical Sciences). At New York University, he developed the Optical Mapping System, which is the first practical single molecule approach for whole genome analysis. In 1999, Professor Schwartz, moved his laboratory to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was made a Full Professor in the departments of Genetics, Chemistry, and the UW Biotechnology Center.