Andrew Murray, professor of molecular and cellular biology, shed light on the emerging role of genetics. He explained the difficulty in decoding the information contained in human DNA.

The head of Harvard’s Center of Genomics Research, Murray said he hopes to devise new techniques to better understand all the protein molecules. He emphasized that the work to understand the genome has profound implications for the fields of medicine and human knowledge in general.

Working on the organisimal side of biology, Pellegrino University Research Professor Edward O. Wilson described his efforts to learn the full extent of biological diversity.

“We don’t know to the nearest order of magnitude the number of plants and animals,” he said.

And bacteria, he said, “represent the black hole of biodiversity.”

Murray and Wilson discussed the meeting of organismic and evolutionary biology with molecular biology. The relationship between these two branches of biology used to be rocky, but is now becoming congenial because biologists are understanding the inherent relationships of these fields, they said.

In addition to scientific advances, the panel also addressed issues of women in science. Grosz, who serves as dean of science at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, said she would like to see more women scientists at Harvard.

Audience members said they appreciated the discussion and thought it was beneficial.

“I thought is was an excellent symposium,” said John S. Toll, president of Washington College in Chestertown, Md.

“It was a wonderful introduction to the future of science,” said audience member Christine Hartl.

—Staff writer Zachary Z Norman can be reached at znorman@fas.harvard.edu.