Seminar alert

Two more job talks coming up next week plus the regular Monday EEMB seminar sounds of fairly general interest.

MONDAY 23rd - EEMB seminar

Prof. Dick Zimmer from UCLA is the EEMB seminar speaker for Monday, Jan 23rd (4 pm, MSRB auditorium). Dick is a marine ecologist who focuses on the role of chemical signaling in the environment in relation to species interactions, population and community dynamics, and a variety of other ecologically important processes and phenomena. As such, Dick’s work involving the molecular basis for behavior of marine organisms integrates across many scales of biological organization – from molecules to ecosystems. Last year Dick finished a two-year term as an NSF Rotator in Biological Oceanography and next Monday he will present results of his new research on ‘Keystone Species and Molecules of Keystone Significance.’

TUESDAY 24th - MCDB job candidate

3:30-4:30 P.M. in the Marine Science Auditorium, MSRB 1302
Dr. Yi Xing, University of Iowa, Carver College of Medicine
"Global insight into post-transcriptional regulation and evolution"
The long-term goal of my research is to elucidate the regulation of post-transcriptional RNA processing and understand how genomic and environmental variation of post-transcriptional networks impacts cellular functions, phenotypic traits, and diseases. Post-transcriptional regulatory processes, including alternative splicing and alternative polyadenylation, generate enormous functional and regulatory complexity in eukaryotes. We are developing computational and statistical tools for global analysis of post-transcriptional regulation using high-throughput sequencing technologies. Through the use of integrated genomic, computational, and molecular approaches we are investigating the variation and dynamics of alternative splicing and post-transcriptional regulatory networks between species, within populations, and in response to cellular and environmental signals. In this talk, I will discuss two projects in which we study post-transcriptional gene regulation in evolution and development. In the first project, we combine RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) with computational and molecular studies to investigate the regulatory impact of de novo exon creation during primate and human evolution. In the second project, we utilize multiple high-throughput sequencing technologies (RNA-Seq, DRS, SELEX-Seq) to delineate the complete spectrum of a cell-type-specific post-transcriptional regulatory network during the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, which plays a critical role in development and cancer metastasis.


The next candidate for the EEMB Biological Oceanographer position search, Dr. Michael Lomas, Bermuda Institute of Ocean Science, will be visiting on Jan 26-27. I don't have the talk details yet but I'm guessing Wednesday at noon again. Dr Lomas is a biological oceanographer who’s primary focus is to improve our understanding of the marine carbon cycle by studying the inherent taxonomic and physiological variability of marine phytoplankton.