RNA, the Epicenter of Genetic Information [Hardcover]

The origin story and emergence of molecular biology is muddled. The early triumphs in bacterial genetics and the complexity of animal and plant genomes complicate an intricate history. This book documents the many advances, as well as the prejudices and founder fallacies.

Preface, Chapter 1. Overview, Chapter 2. The genetic material?, Chapter 3. Halcyon days, Chapter 4. Worlds apart, Chapter 5. Strange genomes, strange genetics, Chapter 6. The Age of Aquarius, Chapter 7. All that junk, Chapter 8. The expanding repertoire of RNA, Chapter 9. Glimpses of a modern RNA world, Chapter 10. Genome sequences and transposable elements, Chapter 11. The human genome, Chapter 12. Small RNAs with mighty functions, Chapter 13. Large RNAs with many functions, Chapter 14. The epigenome, Chapter 15. The programming of development, Chapter 16. RNA and repeats rule, Chapter 17. Plasticity, Chapter 18. Beyond the jungle of dogmas, References

John Mattick is the Professor of RNA Biology at UNSW Sydney. He obtained his PhD in Biochemistry at Monash University in Melbourne and undertook his postdoctoral training at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Most recently he was the Chief Executive of Genomics England, Executive Director of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, and Director of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, the Australian Genome Research Facility, the ARC Special Research Centre for Molecular and Cell Biology, and the ARC Special Research Centre for Functional and Applied Genomics at the University of Queensland.

His research interests have been focused for the past three decades on the role of regulatory RNAs in the evolution and development of complex organisms. He pioneered the thesis that the majority of the genome of humans and other complex organisms, previously considered to be junk, is devoted to regulatory RNAs that direct the epigenetic trajectories of differentiation andls