[IEEE-bhpjobs] Research in Progress presentations at Duke Nov 11

[esther L]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RIP presentations
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 12:06:48 -0500 (EST)
From: Terry Furey <tsfurey at duke.edu>
Reply-To: Terry Furey <terry.furey at duke.edu>
To: bioinfo at duke.edu


Two Research in Progess (RIP) presentations will be given tomorrow, Friday
November 11th at 12:15pm in Ciemas room 2240.  Each presentation will last
approximately 1/2 hour and will describe the ongoing research of two
students in the Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CBB - formerly
BGT) graduate program.  Descriptions of their presentations are given
below.

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Genome-wide prediction of imprinted murine genes

Philippe Luedi

Imprinted genes are epigenetically modified genes whose expression is
determined according to their parent of origin. They are involved in
embryonic development, and imprinting dysregulation is linked to cancer,
obesity, diabetes, and behavioral disorders such as autism and bipolar
disease. Herein, we train a statistical model based on DNA sequence
characteristics that not only identifies potentially imprinted genes, but
also predicts the parental allele from which they are expressed. Of 23,788
annotated autosomal mouse genes, our model identifies 600 (2.5%) to be
potentially imprinted, 64% of which are predicted to exhibit maternal
expression. These predictions allowed for the identification of putative
candidate genes for complex conditions where parent-of-origin effects are
involved, including Alzheimer disease, autism, bipolar disorder, diabetes,
male sexual orientation, obesity, and schizophrenia. We observe that the 
number,
type, and relative orientation of repeated elements flanking a gene are
particularly important in predicting whether a gene is imprinted.

*********************************************************************************

The 185/333 Gene Family in Strongylocentrotus purspuratus: Unexpected
sequence diversity and gene scrambling.

Supriya Munshaw

The purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purspuratus, is an
echinoderm within the deuterostome lineage of the animal kingdom. It
is an invertebrate and its crucial relationship to mammals makes the
analysis of its immune system relevant to understanding the evolution
of the complex vertebrate immune system. A set of genes was found that
were up-regulated in their coelomocytes in response to
lipopolysaccharide. A subset of these transcripts is of particular
interest since it seems to encode an uncharacterized family of closely
related proteins designated as 185/333. These sequences exhibit
significant nucleotide variation but have strikingly similar
elements. In this project, I am trying to see whether these genes are
a result of a birth and death model of evolution, a case of gene
conversion or recombination. I apply different evolutionary methods in
order to answer questions about the mechanisms of diversity seen in
this gene set.

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-- 
-- Esther L.,  esther-L at mailsnare.net or esther-L at alumni.virginia.edu
Speaking only for myself.


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