This course, offered jointly between the Department of Agronomy and the T.H.Morgan School of Biological Sciences, is intended to convey fundamental insights into how higher plants as experimental systems have provided a sound understanding of important areas of current biological and biochemical thought. A laboratory component is included to supplement the lecture materials. Lecture, three hours; lab, two hours per week.
Microorganisms: their physiology, morphology, fine structure, genetics and metabolism in relationship to bacterial growth and division. Lecture, two hours; laboratory, four hours.
Biologists working in the laboratory perform many essential biochemical tasks to prep and run molecular analyses on their specimens and samples. Similarly, biologists working on data they collected, or on aggregated data collected by many researchers, just perform essential tasks such as cleaning, reshaping, and transforming their data so that they can explore and visualize it.
Radioisotope techniques and their application in the biological and medical sciences. Radiation safety, calibration and use of radiation detectors, counting statistics, uptake and assay methods, and applications. Laboratory, five hours per week.
An introductory and comparative survey of invertebrate and vertebrate endocrine organs and neuroendocrine mechanisms with emphasis on the evolution, chemistry, actions and functions of hormones.
Analysis of fresh-water systems, with special emphasis on aquatic ecology. Lecture, three hours; laboratory, three hours per week.
A survey of the physiology, morphology, life histories, taxonomy and evolutionary relationships of the various groups comprising the algae, with the main emphasis upon the freshwater algae. Lecture, two hours; laboratory, four hours.
This course introduces students to major topics in behavioral ecology and comparative neurobiology with an emphasis on inter-relationships between these fields. Topics to be covered vary each semester, but typically include: the optimality approach to understanding behavior, predator-prey behavior, mating and social behavior, behavioral genetics, neural circuits and behavior, sensory biology, neural development, and neural plasticity.
This course provides students with instruction and experience in the experimental research techniques employed in the study of behavioral ecology and comparative neurobiology with emphasis on the integration of these approaches for understanding animal behavior. Each student will carry out three small research projects in the laboratories of three of the participating faculty.
Abstract:
Detailed understanding of how conformational dynamics orchestrates function in allosteric regulation of recognition and catalysis at atomic resolution remains ambiguous. The three dimensional structure of protein is not always adequate to provide a complete understanding of protein function. We use atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to complement experiments to understand how protein conformational dynamics are coupled to allosteric function. We analyze multi-dimensional simulation trajectories by mapping key dynamical features within individual macrostates as residue-residue contacts. In this talk, we will discuss computational studies on members of a ubiquitous family of enzymes that regulate many sub-cellular processes. The effects of distal mutations and substrate binding are observed at locations far beyond the mutation and binding sites, implying their importance in allostery. The results provide insights into the general interplay between enzyme conformational dynamics and catalysis from an atomistic perspective that have implications for structure based drug design and protein engineering.
