Elnitski, head of the National Human Genome Research Institute's genomic functional analysis section, will speak on how advancements in knowledge of the genome promise to present new disease therapies.

Her talk, "Regulatory and Epigenetic Landscapes of Mammalian Genomes," will explain that although the genome has been fully sequenced, many mysteries hide in its code. The gene accounts for less than 2 percent of the sequence, while other functional elements, which provide important regulatory instructions, create about 50 percent of the genome. Understanding non-coding functional elements is crucial to understanding how a cell functions properly -- and recent evidence suggests that regulatory elements play a larger role in human disease than previously thought.

Elnitski also will discuss conventional and cutting-edge ways to address the genome's functional regions through computational and experimental approaches. Her research contributions include participation as a member of the sequencing and analysis consortia for the mouse, rat, chicken and bovine genomes.

Part of the Bioinformatics Colloquium Series, the lecture is sponsored by the Russ College of Engineering and Technology's School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Biomedical Engineering program; Center for Intelligent, Distributed and Dependable Systems; and Bioinformatics Laboratory; as well as the College of Arts and Sciences' Molecular and Cellular Biology program; the Ohio University Genomics Facility; and the Edison Biotechnology Institute.

-- Sarah Ryan and Colleen Carow