Date: 20130129
Course: Protein Prediction 2
Title: The Pfam protein families database
Speaker: Marco Punta

This talk was recorded Jan 28, 2013 as a practice talk for my Candidacy Exam at University of California, San Diego. It discusses my current research in Philip Bourne's lab, as well as proposes research for my thesis over the next two years.

Abstract

Under certain conditions, cells form protrusions that oscillate rapidly around the cell periphery. Kapustina et al. reveal that these oscillatory protrusions, which may be related to processes involved in amoeboid cell migration, are driven by the cyclic folding and unfolding of the plasma membrane and its underlying actin cortex. This biosights episode presents the paper by Kapustina et al. from the January 7, 2013, issue of The Journal of Cell Biology and includes an interview with lead...

This video is a surreal presentation of a Metabolic Melody by Kevin Ahern (www.davincipress.com/metabmelodies.html for more info). The tune is The Beatle's "Across the Universe." The lyrics and video are by Kevin Ahern and the recording is by David Simmons

Keratinocytes contribute to melanocyte activity by influencing their microenvironment, in part, through secretion of paracrine factors. Here we discovered that p53 directly regulates Edn1 expression in epidermal keratinocytes and controls UV-induced melanocyte homeostasis. Selective ablation of EDN1 in murine epidermis (EDN1ep-/-) does not alter melanocyte homeostasis in newborn skin but decreases dermal melanocytes in adult skin. Results showed that keratinocytic EDN1 in a non-cell...

We now possess the ability to read and write DNA. These tools are not only revolutionizing biotechnology but also the basic life sciences as well. The challenge is that we are still learning the grammar. In other words, we often do not know which genetic perturbations to make in order to alter the behavior of an organism. As a result, synthetic biology still involves much trial and error. Moreover, we are still far from the point where we can engineer new organisms from scratch – rather,...