EVENTS

STOQ 2009 – THE STOQ INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
«BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION. Facts and Theories»

Abstracts of the Lectures:

Werner Arber, University of Basel, Switzerland (Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1978)

Bio-Molecular Evidences

Shortly after the so-called "modern evolutionary synthesis" leading to Neo-Darwinism around 1940, microbial geneticists discovered that DNA molecules are the carriers of genetic information. Together with the thereafter discovered double-helical structure of DNA molecules, this lead to molecular genetics and recently also to molecular evolution. Experimental investigations on spontaneous mutagenesis mainly with bacteria have revealed a number of different, specific molecular mechanisms that contribute to the generation of genetic variants, the drivers of biological evolution.

These mechanisms can be classified into three natural strategies to generate genetic variants:

(1) local changes in the sequence of nucleotides of DNA,

(2) intra-genomic rearrangements of DNA segments,

(3) acquisition of a segment of foreign DNA.

A few examples for these mechanisms and strategies will be discussed, as well as their qualitative differences with regard to their contributions to evolution. The general relevance of these insights into biological evolution for all living beings will be discussed. On the basis of present knowledge, specific "evolution gene" products are postulated to provide novel genetic variants in co-operation with several non-genetic elements such as structural flexibilities and chemical instabilities of biomolecules, the impact of chemical and physical mutagens, and random encounter. In conclusion: Natural reality actively takes care of biological evolution of populations of organisms and it keeps the rates of mutagenesis low, insuring a comfortable genetic stability to all organisms.