The Department of Genetics, Osmania University, Hyderabad has organized a national symposium on ‘50 years of DNA- A Celebration and a Showcase’ from March 29 to 31, 2004 at Hyderabad under the aegis of the Special Assistance Programme sponsored by the University Grants Commission, New Delhi.

The symposium has been organized as part of the world- wide celebrations of 50 years of double helical structure of DNA discovery by the two noble laureates Dr James Watson and Dr Francis Crick in March 1953. They felt that it would be possible to guess the structure from a study of the possible stereochemical configurations of polynucleotide chains together with the experimental data from King’s College, London. They solved the three-dimensional molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the molecule that carries genetic information and transmits it from one generation to the next.

The completion of the human genome sequence by the end of 2003 is a tribute to this momentous event in biology. The project aimed at locating every single human gene was officially launched in 1990. In 1995, Craig Venter, Claire Fraser, Hamilton Smith and their colleagues in USA completed the first full genetic sequence of a living organism, the bacterium Hemophilus influenzae. In 1996, Dolly, the sheep, the first adult mammal was cloned at the Rosalin Institute by Ian Wilmut and colleagues.

In 1998, Dr John Sulston’s team and their scientific collaborators, led by Dr. Bob Waterson at the US based National Institute of Health described first, genetic details of a multicellular organism, the nematode worm C elegans. The first human chromosome- chromosome 22 was sequenced in 1999 and the first working draft of the whole human genome sequence was announced in the year 2000.

Dr Thomas Hash, principal scientist, ICRISAT, Dr V Arunachalam, scientist, Swaminathan Research Foundation (Chennai), Prof SY Anwar, head, Department of Genetics, Osmania University, Dr VS Kumar, director, Center for Artificial Intelligence, Osmania University, Dr VS Raju from Kakatiya University and Janaki from C-DAC, Pune delivered lectures on various relevant aspects at the symposium.