Brown University Center for Computational Molecular Biology

Students Poster Session - May, 2006

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Assist. prof. Will Fairbrother Student Poster Day
on Computational Biology
hosted by
Assistant Professor Will Fairbrother

The First Annual Computational Biology Poster Session was held in Room 105 of the Center for Genomics and Proteomics on Friday, May 5th, 2006, from 3:00-5:00pm. Posters ranged from image processing, to simulation of protein nucleic acid recognition events, to the development of special alignment tools for non-coding regulatory elements. It was a great opportunity to meet students and faculty interested in Computational Biology here at Brown.

First prize was awarded to Srividya Kalyanaraman for her poster entitled
"Viral Genomes: An Insight Into the Past and the Future".

Author: Srividya Kalyanaraman
Viral Genomes:
An Insight into the Past and the Future

Abstract:

Viruses have been seen as both friend and foe during their time of existence. In doing alignments, it becomes evident that viruses have genomes that render them sufficient candidates for being the precursors of eukaryotes. When comparing the Rous Sarcoma Virus (RSV) to products it affects, the genome of RSV itself contains regions homologous to most of its products. Also data run between Mimivirus and several different ancient human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) show great homology between them all.


Authors: Lee Flowers and James Potter
The Identification of Functional Polymorphisms
within Non-Coding Sequence Elements

Abstract:

Exon splicing enhancers (ESEs) affect the splicing of genes and their resulting phenotypes. To better catalogue human ESEs, we propose a strategy of searching the human genome for conserved areas to compare results with ESE motif searching algorithms. The combination of conservation and motif searches should reduce the currently unacceptable false positive rate in predicted splicing enhancers. Further analysis and biochemical tests will later confirm or disconfirm ESEs from the predicted regions.


Author: John Cumbers, Graduate Student, EEB
Modeling insulin sensitivity

Abstract:

Models are used to make predictions about biological systems. When making a model some simplifications must be made to make the problem tractable. A negative feedback mechanism has recently been shown to regulate insulin receptor levels and a model of the insulin-signaling pathway is presented here using differential equations. The output displays the key characteristics of this negative feedback loop under two different inputs. When fed a constant input of nutrients a typical diet in the USA), the model mimics reduced receptor number and reduced sensitivity, which would in turn lead to higher glucose levels and over production of insulin by the pancreas (a pre-diabetic state). If pancreatic beta cell burn out is the pathology of diabetes, then when no more insulin can be produced the patient develops type II diabetes. However, when fed a cyclic input of nutrients (a more natural diet evolved from a hunter gatherer) the model exhibits normal cyclic output of insulin and no diabetes.


Author: Lian Rae Garton
A Study of the Genes Involved in Regulatory Pathways of the Heart

Abstract:

The huge amount of available genomic data makes it important to establish various levels for looking at the data, from the cell, to organs, to the organism. This project focused on the specific genes active in the heart, along with an understanding of the regulatory pathways involving those genes. I considered a number of individual genes involved in regulatory pathways of the heart and performed comparisons across organisms in an effort to gain a broader understanding of the relationships between genes at the nucleotide and protein levels.

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