Keynote speaker

The past is the foundation on which us humans understand our present and try to make sound projections of what will happen in the future. Genetic information from the past is therefore important when trying to understand for example why different groups of people have different disease risks and therefore require different treatments, or how disease viruses and bacteria will mutate in the future, so we can adapt our vaccines, or how the Earth's ecosystems will respond to global warming, so we can take preventative measures. The challenge has been that DNA from the past has been broken down into tiny fragments, so for decades the study of fossil DNA remained a scientific curiosity with great potential that had not come to fruition. Next Generation Sequencing has fundamentally changed this. These new technologies have made it possible to create whole genomes of ancient organisms and have transformed our understanding of human history and the impact of climate change on Earth's ecosystems. In this talk, Professor Eske Willerslev from Cambridge University gives an insight into how Next Generation Sequencing has revolutionized what we can say about the past and how this knowledge can be used to address some of the challenges we face.