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| Monday, May 14, 2012
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3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
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| Tuesday, May 15, 2012
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12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
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2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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SUSAN SWERLING LECTURES: The Immune System and Cancer
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| Description: |
A part of the Seminars in Oncology Lecture Series...
Guest Speakers include:
Michael Karin, PhD, University of California San Diego
Robert Schreiber, PhD, Washington University School of Medicine
James Allison, PhD, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Location: Jimmy Fund Auditorium (35 Binney Street - Boston)
Hosted by: Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD
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Claudia Steele
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4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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Beyond Exomes: Noncoding In Vivo Function and Human Disease
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| Description: |
Cardiovascular Seminar Series
, CHB
Len A. Pennacchio, Ph.D.
Senior Staff Scientist, Genomics Division
Deputy Director, Joint Genome Institute
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Beyond Exomes:
Noncoding In Vivo Function and Human Disease
Folkman Auditorium - Enders Bldg. Lobby Level
Hosted by Department of Cardiology | Children’s Hospital Boston
This conference is supported by the Faye and Karen Sinclair Research Fund for Congenital Heart Disease
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Michelle Merry
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| Wednesday, May 16, 2012
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11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
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Bioinformatics Seminar Series: SEPP and TIPP: New Phylogenetic Placement and Taxon Identification Methods for Metagenomic Data
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| Description: |
Tandy Warnow, University of Texas at Austin
TOC LAB Stata Center Building 32- Room G575
Phylogenetic placement arises in the analysis of metagenomic data, in which the objective is to insert short molecular sequences (called "query sequences") into an existing phylogenetic tree and alignment on full-length sequences for the same gene. We present SEPP, a general
"boosting" technique to improve the accuracy and/or speed of phylogenetic
placement techniques. The key algorithmic aspect of SEPP is a dataset decomposition technique in SATe (Liu et al., Science 2009 and Systematic Biology 2012, a method that utilizes an iterative divide-and-conquer technique to co-estimate alignments and trees on large molecular sequence datasets. We show that SEPP improves current phylogenetic placement methods, placing metagenomic sequences more accurately when the set of input sequences has a large evolutionary diameter and produces placements of comparable accuracy in a fraction of the time for easier cases. Finally, we present TIPP, an extension of SEPP, that enables taxon identification for short reads, and which produces dramatically improved accuracy over current taxon identification methods.
Joint work with Siavash Mirarab and Nam Nguyen, PhD students at UT-Austin, and Bo Liu and Mihai Pop at the University of Maryland.
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Patrice Macaluso
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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Microbial Facebook: Probing bacterial social networks
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| Description: |
Speaker: Marvin Whiteley, PhD, The University of Texas at Austin
Location: The Forsyth Institute, Seminar Room A, 245 First Street, 17th Floor, Cambridge
Summary: The survival of pathogens in the human body has been rigorously studied for well over a century. Bacteria are able to colonize, persist and thrive in vivo due to an array of capabilities, including the ability to attach to host tissues, produce extracellular virulence factors, and evade the immune system. Most bacterial pathogenesis studies have focused on mono-culture infections; however, it is clear that many bacterial infections are not simply the result of colonization with a single species, but rather ensue from the actions of polymicrobial communities. Microbes within polymicrobial infections often display synergistic interactions that result in enhanced colonization and persistence in the infection site. Such interactions have been particularly noted in polymicrobial infections of the oral cavity, although the molecular processes controlling these synergistic interactions are generally not known. Here, I will discuss how interactions between oral bacteria impact community development, resistance to host innate immunity, and in vivo persistence. I will also discuss the use of two novel approaches for probing bacterial interactions in small populations. The first approach utilizes multi-photon lithography to create picoliter-sized porous cavities capable of capturing a single bacterium and tracking growth and behavior of the resultant microcolony in real time. These bacterial ‘lobster traps’ allow for examination of polymicrobial interactions in small, defined bacterial populations similar in size to those observed in nature. The second approach involves the use of scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) to monitor interactions in a bacterial biofilm through quantification of specific signals and cues. Using these technologies we provide insight not only into the number of bacteria, but also the concentration of small molecules required to elicit polymicrobial responses.
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Pam Quattrocchi
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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6:00 PM - 8:30 PM
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Influence without Authority Seminar: Presented by Mass-AWIS and the Merck Women’s Network
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| Description: |
Influence without Authority Seminar: Presented by Mass-AWIS and the Merck Women’s Network
Speaker: Gwen Acton, Ph.D.
Merck Research Laboratories Atrium & Auditorium, 33 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, MA 02115
Many situations require getting things done through others, when we don't have explicit power. This seminar will provide an overview of what motivates others, common mistakes, and practical tips on how to lead others in an organization when you don't have authority over them.
Speaker: Dr. Gwen Acton is the CEO of Vivo Group, a strategic consulting firm in Boston that specializes in improving the productivity and innovation of scientists and engineers. She is an expert on strategic leadership at the intersection of science and business. Gwen holds a PhD in biology from MIT and has served as the Director of Scientific Development at the Whitehead Institute, Center for Genome Research. She is also a former faculty member at Harvard and the Author of the book: "Bluffers Guide to Genetics".
Agenda:
6:00-6:30 pm: Registration, Networking and light dinner (Atrium)
6:30-6:45 pm: Announcements and Promotions (Auditorium)
6:45-7:45 pm: Talk by Dr. Gwen Acton (Auditorium)
7:45-8:30 pm: Networking and Dessert
To register, visit:www.acteva.com/go/mass-awis
$10 AWIS members
$20 non-AWIS members
Free for Merck employees (register with Merck email address)
For more information visit:www.mass-awis.org
Join AWIS to save money on events and to support our work!
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Lynnelle Pittet
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| Thursday, May 17, 2012
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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Building Epithelial Trees
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| Description: |
Tufts University Program in Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology Seminar Series.
Guest Speaker: Celeste M. Nelson, PhD, Chemical & Biological Engineering and Molecular Biology, Princeton University
Location: Tufts University Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, Room B09, 145 Harrison Avenue, Boston
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Sharon Belding
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Week of Sunday, May 13, 2012
