The [UCSF Institute for Human Genetics 2012] symposium led off with geneticist Eddy Rubin, MD, PhD, whose presentation demonstrated that genetic studies are being applied to human problems that extend even beyond the realm of medicine.
Rubin – a scientist who oversaw the sequencing and analysis of 13 percent of the human genome as part of the original Human Genome Project – has taken his research from studying abnormalities in DNA “enhancers” that may contribute to disease susceptibility or birth defects, to cutting global greenhouse gas emissions by manipulating gut microbes in sheep.