Speakers
Laura Landweber
Keynote Speaker: Laura Landweber, Princeton University
Research in my laboratory combines multiple approaches - from comparative bioinformatic sequence analysis to functional experiments - to study early molecular evolution, the origin of the genetic code and genetic systems, and how cells and DNA solve biological problems, such as the creation and assembly of genes.
The current explosion of activity in molecular biology has permitted us to study the process of evolution at its most fundamental level. DNA sequence analysis, for example, has provided us with insight into the mechanisms of selection and evolution at the level of the gene. The discovery of catalytic RNA, furthermore, has led to advances in the study of the origin of life, and suggests that there are other "molecular fossils," or primitive biological mechanisms, still present in modern species. Protists, in particular, have surprised molecular biologists with a bewildering diversity of gene organization, from the impressive scrambled genes in ciliates to bizarre forms of RNA processing, including splicing and RNA editing, and an abundance of nonstandard genetic codes. Therefore they seem to be the natural place to study primitive or aberrant genetic systems.
Sessions
Kinetoplastids
Chair: Susan Madison-Antenucci
List to come
Evolutionary Protistology
Chair: Andrea Habura
List to come
Extracellular Matrix in Protists
Chair: David Domozych
List to come
Protists as Model Organisms
Chair: Michael P. Koonce
List to come
Open Sessions
Chair: various
List to come