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Leading genome survey edited in Australia

February 03, 2005

Anatoly Ruvinsky 001[1].jpgThe world’s most comprehensive and up-to-date book on the genetic make-up of mammals, just published in the UK, was edited in Australia.

“It includes important contributions by Australian researchers, adding to Australia’s achievement in a rapidly developing field of modern science,” said one of the book’s two editors, Professor Anatoly Ruvinsky from the University of New England.

Mammalian Genomics (CABI Publishing, 2005) comprises 21 chapters written by 40 leading geneticists from Europe, the United States, Australia and Japan. The authors are based at world-renowned institutions such as the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge (UK), the Pasteur Institute (France), the Russian Academy of Sciences, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) and the University of Geneva (Switzerland). Professor Ruvinsky’s collaborating editor is Professor J.A. Marshall Graves from the Australian National University.

The book, a synthesis of the vast amount of new knowledge in genetics and genomics accumulated over the past 15 years and written for specialists and advanced students, is the only one of its kind on the market. (Professor Ruvinsky explained that its focus on mammals allowed for a level of detail that would not have been possible if its scope had been broader.) It is divided into five sections, covering the structure, function and evolution of mammalian genomes, the computer-based storage and analysis of genomic data, and the application of genomics in fields such as medicine, pharmacology, animal breeding, and population genetics. One of the chapters on the evolution of genomes amounts to what Professor Ruvinsky described as “an heroic attempt to understand the genome of a primordial mammal that lived approximately 200 million years ago”.

Professor Ruvinsky is an editor of nine previous books on genetics, including a series of five books dealing separately with the genetics of pigs, cattle, horses, sheep, and dogs. “While each of those books dealt with a particular species, the new one is devoted to a specific set of problems,” he said. “In addressing these problems it draws on genomic studies of a wide range of species, from marsupials to humans. We didn’t leave too many stones unturned.”

“One of the challenges for the editors was the presentation of such a huge array of topics in a logically-structured book of only 600 pages,” he continued. “It took us about a year to arrive at a structure that was both practical and intellectually appealing.”

Another major difficulty, he explained, was ensuring “the most comprehensive coverage of each topic” by encouraging collaboration between individual authors whose work, when brought together in a single chapter, would create that “comprehensive coverage”. In several cases, he said, this involved collaboration between authors who have never met each other in person.

“This book was one of the most difficult editing projects I have worked on,” Professor Ruvinsky concluded. “I hope it will be useful for those who need to review the latest knowledge about the mammalian genome.”


Media contact: Professor Anatoly Ruvinsky, School of Rural Science and Agriculture, UNE (02) 6773 3900 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049. The photograph of Professor Ruvinsky published here is available from Jim Scanlan on (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at February 3, 2005 02:57 PM