EMILE ZUCKERKANDL
Emile Zuckerkandl is one of the founding fathers of the field of molecular evolution. In the 1960s, through examining both the constancy and the changes occurring in life’s informational macromolecules (DNA, RNA, and protein), he pointed out that these molecules provided unparalleled knowledge about the past of genes and organisms. He discovered the existence and significance of macromolecular sequence homology independently of Vernon Ingram, recognized the basic importance for evolution of gene duplication, and predicted the resolution of the great multiplicity of proteins into a relatively small number of homology groups. He argued that new proteins can in general be evolved only from old proteins, postulated the existence of pseudogenes, and recognized that not only genes but also certain gene interaction patterns can be extremely ancient. In collaborative work with Linus Pauling, he formulated the molecular clock hypothesis and published the first molecular phylogenetic tree. He was first to emphasize the importance for evolution of regulatory changes in genes relative to structural changes and to recognize that phenotypic changes are likely most frequently attributable to merely quantitative changes in gene expression. Regarding the role of extensive stretches of chromatin in gene regulation, he focused on “sectorial” gene repression and gene potentiation in development. He repeatedly pointed to functions of so-called junk DNA, such as the role of heterochromatin in cell determination and the use of extensive stretches of noncoding DNA by developmental regulatory genes as binding sites for proteins that determine the structure and regulatory effects of chromatin. He emphasized that a ready changeability and dispensability of DNA sequences does not imply their nonfunctionality. He analyzed evolutionary fates of programs of gene action, predicted that a greater complexity of gene interaction networks would be found in “higher” compared to “lower” organisms, and recognized that an evolutionary increase in regulatory complexity represents primarily a trend intrinsic to the internal molecular environment, with the external environment having only to concur.

Dr. Zuckerkandl is currently Consulting Professor of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and President of the Institute of Molecular Medical Sciences in Palo Alto, California. Formerly he was President of the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine, and earlier the founding director of of the Research Center for Macromolecular Biology at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Molecular Evolution and served as its editor-in-chief until recently. He is a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  CHAIRMEN
     
Ernesto Carafoli (Università degli Studi, Padua)
Orio Ciferri (Università di Pavia)
Gian Antonio Danieli (Università degli Studi, Padua)
Bernardino Fantini (University of Geneva)
Giovanni Giacometti (Università degli Studi, Padua)
Takashi Gojobori (National Institute of Genetics, Mishima)
Ladislav Kovac (Comenius University, Bratislava)
Pierre Lasserre (University of Paris VI)
Lucio Luzzatto (Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca sul Cancro, Genoa)
Howard Moore (UNESCO-ROSTE)
  Giorgio Morpurgo (Università degli Studi di Perugia)
Piergiorgio Odifreddi (Università degli Studi di Torino)
Vittorio Sgaramella (Parco Tecnologico Padano - CERSA, Lodi)
Talal Younès (IUBS, Paris)
     

 

 INVITED SPEAKERS
     
Werner Arber (University of Basel)
John Barrow (Cambridge University)
Giorgio Bernardi (Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Napoli)
Alec Boksenberg (Cambridge University)
Rita Colwell (University of Maryland, College Park)
Antoine Danchin (Institut Pasteur, Paris)
Christian de Duve (Christian de Duve Institute of Cellular Pathology, Bruxelles)
Graziano Fiorito (Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Napoli)
Richard Ernst (ETH, Zürich)
Giovanni Giacometti (Università di Padova)
Pierre Gilles de Gennes (Institut Curie, Paris)
Elkhonon Goldberg (New York Univeristy)
Takashi Gojobori (National Institute of Genetics, Mishima)
Susan Greenfield (Oxford University)
Daniel Hartl (Harvard University, Cambridge)
Motonori Hoshi (Keio University, Yokohama)
Hideaki Koizumi (Advanced Research Laboratory, Saitama)
Pier Luigi Luisi (Università degli Studi di Roma Tre)
Lucio Luzzatto (Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca sul Cancro, Genova)
Gabriel Macaya (University of Costa Rica, San José)
Benno Müller-Hill (University of Cologne)
Arthur I. Miller (University College London)
Piergiorgio Odifreddi (Università degli Studi di Torino)
Pierre Papon (Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielles de Paris)
Alain Prochiantz (CNRS - Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris)
Jörg Rasche (German Association for Analytical Psychology, Berlin)
Vittorio Sgaramella (Parco Tecnologico Padano - CERSA, Lodi)
Elliott Sober (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Alessandro Schiesaro (King's College London)
Marvalee Wake (University of California, Berkeley)
Douglas Wallace (University of California, Irvine)
Emile Zuckerkandl (Institute of Molecular Medical Sciences, Palo Alto)
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