(Posted October 25, 2004)

HUNTINGDON. Pa. -- Jill Keeney, professor of biology at Juniata College, will lecture on "The GCAT Consortium: Providing Genome Research at an Affordable Price" at 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 3 in Neff Lecture Hall in the von Liebig Center for Science on the Juniata campus.

The lecture is free and open to the public. The talk is part of the Bookend Seminar series, which features afternoon lectures each month by Juniata College faculty.

Keeney, who has specialized in cellular and genomic research since coming to Juniata in 1994, will explain how a group of colleges and universities across the country have formed a consortium called Genome Consortium for Active Teaching that seeks to find affordable laboratory experiences in genomic research and make them available to undergraduate students.

"The latest technology in biomedical research often require very expensive instruments and supplies and usually these are only available at large universities," Keeney explains. "To better train future scientific researchers and physicians, these concepts need to be taught at the undergraduate level."

Keeney earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from The Pennsylvania State University in 1985 and a doctorate in immunology from Washington University of St. Louis in 1990. Prior to her arrival at Juniata, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In 1991, she was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Cancer Society.

Dr. Keeney teaches courses in microbiology, immunology, advanced genetics and molecular biology techniques. Additionally, she has developed a student-centered research program, securing funding from several outside sources including the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.