Human Genetics: The Molecular Challenge

The last Cold Spring Harbor Symposium that was wholly devoted to human genetics took place 22 years ago in 1964. The meeting was relatively small and cozy and was divided into three sections, namely, population studies, genetics of somatic cells and cells in culture, and human proteins. The main focus was on classical approaches to human and population genetics, and the proteins mentioned were predominantly hemoglobins, immunoglobulins, and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, the latter because of its use as an X-linked marker. DNA did not appear in any of the titles, hardly even by implication, and was hardly mentioned in the whole published proceedings. The main hint about the future came from studies on somatic-cell genetics, including one of the first descriptions by Little-field (1965) of selection of mouse cell hybrids using drug resistance markers. The first description of the then LA, now HLA-A, locus was an important step in the development...