Shoumita Dasgupta, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Medicine,
Biomedical Genetics Director of Graduate Studies, Program in
Genetics and Genomics Medical Genetics Course Manager, Boston
University School of Medicine Ph.D. University of California,
San Francisco M.S. University of California, San Francisco B.S.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Stanley L. Robbins Award
for Excellence in Teaching The popular press has called the
twentieth century “The Century of the Gene.” During this time,
genetics came forward as a central discipline in biology, first
with the rediscovery of the work of Gregor Mendel at the turn of
the century, later with the elucidation of the structure of DNA
by Jim Watson and Francis Crick, and more recently with the
development of recombinant DNA technologies by Paul Berg and
Herb Boyer. These scientific events revolutionized the way we
thought about biological problems. Mendel’s contributions led
scientists to probe the genetic basis of inheritance while
Watson and Crick helped to define