Robert Plomin, a professional of behavioral genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College in London, will give the David C. Rowe Memorial Lecture at the University of Arizona on Thursday, March 4 at 4 pm in the Integrated Learning Center, room 150. Dr. Rowe, a UBRP faculty sponsor and well-known behavior geneticist, died on February 2, 2003. Plomin was Rowe’s intellectual mentor. The lecture is titled “Beyond the Nature Nurture Debate.”
Many consider Plomin to be the world’s premier behavioral geneticist. He is internationally respected for his studies of genetics and behavior, especially in twins. He heads the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS), the first large-scale population-based twin study in the United Kingdom, and the largest study by far ever conducted on language and cognitive development.
The TEDS method compares identical and non-identical twins as a way to investigate genetic and environmental influences on the early development of the three most common psychological problems in childhood: communication disorders, mild mental impairment, and behavior problems.
More than 15,000 pairs of twins have been enrolled in the study, designed in part to assess abnormal development in the context of normal development. Because of the size of the study, Plomin and other researchers hope to learn about the scope of developmental problems and whether some children miss being identified and treated.
From 1986 to 1994 at Pennsylvania State University, Plomin studied older twins who were reared apart and twins reared together to study aging. He currently is interested in using advances in molecular genetics to identify genes for psychological traits.
There is considerable political debate over nature (genetics) and nurture (environment), but scientifically both are generally accepted as important in the development of behavioral dimensions and disorders. Genetics research has gone beyond asking whether and how much heredity influences behavior to ask how heredity affects complex traits influenced by many genes and by many environmental factors.
The future lies in the identification of specific genes responsible for the widespread influence of genes on behavior. There are all new directions in genetic research that were pioneered by David Rowe.
Plomin will also give a departmental lecture on Friday, March 5, at 2 p.m. in the UA Family and Consumer Resources Building, Room 202, to discuss “Generalist Genes for Learning Disabilities.” In this lecture Plomin will discuss recent quantitative genetic research on learning disabilities that lead to the conclusion that genetic 'diagnoses' differ from traditional diagnoses in that genes tend to be generalists rather than specialists. This research suggests that genes associated with common learning disabilities – such as language impairment, reading disability and mathematics disability – are generalists in three ways. First, genes that affect common learning disabilities are largely the same genes responsible for normal variation in learning abilities. Second, genes that affect any aspect of a learning disability affect other aspects of the disability. Third, genes that affect one learning disability are also likely to affect other learning disabilities. These quantitative genetic findings have far-reaching implications for molecular genetics and neuroscience.
Dr. Plomin will have lunch with UBRP students and others on March 4 at 12:30 pm in Life Sciences South, room 340. Those interested in attending should contact the UBRP Office at 621-8510.
