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Dr. Steven Salzberg is Director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and Horvitz Professor of Computer Science at the University of Maryland.

Dr. Salzberg was part of the team that published the human genome in 2001, and has participated in the sequencing of genomes from a long list of human pathogens, including the microbes responsible for anthrax, Lyme disease, tuberculosis, and malaria.

In 2004, Dr. Salzberg was one of the founders of the Influenza Genome Sequencing Project, which has sequenced thousands of isolates of the influenza virus, in an effort to help design better vaccines and to better understand the nature of influenza pandemics.

In our wide-ranging interview on 1-4-06, Dr. Salzberg discusses

• Genome assembly and genome sequencing
• Evolution and the flu virus
• Influenza pandemics
• Open source software for the biological sciences

Dr. Michael W. Deem is Professor in Biochemical and Genetic Engineering at Rice University. Dr. Deem works in the areas of evolution and immunology. focusing on biological issues involving randomness, diversity, and correlations.

Dr. Deem has developed a physical theory of the competition that allows HIV to escape from the immune system, and the first exact solution of a mathematical model of evolution that accounts for cross-species genetic exchange.

In our wide-ranging SCIENCE AND SOCIETY interview, Dr. Deem discusses

• How evolvability itself is a selectable trait
• The development of complex organs like the eye (Darwin’s famous example)
• Possible underlying pressure for evolution to speed up over time
• Modularity and horizontal gene transfer
• Implications of more rapid evolution for our immune systems

Technorati Tags: Evolution, genetic engineering, HIV