It's in Our Genes — can genes determine complex behavior?

Auditoria Belgrade

'It's in Our Genes' — can genes determine complex behavior?

Is the final product of a gene a protein? But how do those proteins become what we observe? At the third lecture of the "Genetics Without Myths" series we'll talk about heredity and modes of inheritance of traits, including a bit about hereditary diseases (more about them in the next lecture).

While eye color, skin, hair, height, voice, sex, blood group and various diseases like hemophilia and diabetes are relatively clear, what about behavior? Are talents for sports and mathematics inherited? Genius? What about character and temperament? A tendency toward aggression or, conversely, peaceful conflict resolution? And how should we understand complex psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia, which clearly have a hereditary component?

So — a lecture about how the final product of a gene — a protein — becomes behavior and why the search for some single 'genius gene' is as hopeless as the search for a single 'autism gene'.

Terms that will be clarified:

• heredity
• variation
• natural selection
• artificial selection
• homologous and analogous genes
• recessive and dominant genes
• medical genetics

🗣 Lecture by: biologist Simha Borman.

🗓 20 July (Monday) 19:00

• Price: 1500 RSD
• Venue: Vojvode Dobrnjca 48, Belgrade