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| Monday, February 7, 2011
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4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
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Dissolving Boundaries: Extending the Reach of Medicine and Public Health.
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| Description: |
Please join us on February 7, 2011 from 4:00-6:00 PM at the Countway Library for a panel discussion with three distinguished leaders in global health and medicine. The event is free and open to all.
Dissolving Boundaries: Extending the Reach of Medicine and Public Health.
The fields of medicine and public health continue to change, confronting issues of ever-greater magnitude, and framed by debates concerning the boundaries between organized medicine and public health, national and global health concerns, and personal and societal responsibilities. Successful efforts to engage such issues are critically dependent upon a historical understanding of their evolution. The event will feature lecture and discussion from:
• Allan Brandt, Ph.D., Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Professor of the History of Science; Amalie Moses Kass Professor of the History of Medicine.
• Julio Frenk, M.D., Ph.D., Dean of the Faculty, Harvard School of Public Health; T & G Angelopoulos Professor of Public Health and International Development, Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Kennedy School
• Jeffrey S. Flier, M.D., Dean of the Faculty, Harvard Medical School; Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine
An accompanying exhibit, curated by Center staff, will draw from the archival collections of key leaders in American public health from the twentieth century, including Leona Baumgartner, Allan Macy Butler, Philip Drinker, Alice Hamilton, D. Mark Hegsted, Howard Hiatt, Jean Mayer, David Rutstein, Richard Pearson Strong, and James Whittenberger.
RSVP to ContactCHoM@hms.harvard.edu
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| Contact: |
Michael Dello Iacono
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| Tuesday, February 8, 2011
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12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
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1:00 PM - 4:30 PM
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RNAi Screening: From Design to Data Analysis
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| Description: |
Course Lecturers: Steve Elledge, Ph.D., Stephanie Mohr, Ph.D.,
Norbert Perrimon, Ph.D., and Caroline Shamu, Ph.D.
Tissue culture cells have provided a powerful system for studying many fundamental problems in signal transduction, cell differentiation and physiology. However, functional studies in cultured cells were hampered in the past by the lack of a powerful method for perturbing gene activities. A turning point came with the discovery of RNA interference and its rapid rise from small scale to genome-scale screening. Today, the most commonly used approaches are based on long dsRNA for Drosophila cells, and either synthetic siRNAs or vector-expressed short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) for mammalian cells. Driven by genome-sequence data, RNAi is now widely used in high-throughput (HT) screens in both basic and applied biology. It is a powerful method for addressing many cell biological questions, and its amenability for use in modifier screens in addition to direct loss of function screening has made it particularly useful for the analysis of signal transductions pathways. RNAi has also become a method of choice for key steps in the development of therapeutic agents, from target discovery and validation to the analysis of the mechanisms of action of small molecules. This nanocourse will focus on both the technology and applications of RNAi screens.
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| Contact: |
Leah Brault
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4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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| Wednesday, February 9, 2011
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11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
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Bioinformatics Seminar Series: Discriminating coding and non-coding RNAs using comparative sequence analysis
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| Description: |
MIT Stata Center TOC Lab 32-G575
In my talk, I will first briefly review challenges and the current
state-of-the-art for genome-wide annotation of non-coding RNAs. To accurately locate non-coding RNAs in a genome it turned out to be critical to know what parts are actually coding. Although there are many sophisticated protein gene finders and very good annotations exist for most model organisms, there are also ambiguous and non-standard situations in which these programs fail.
We have therefore developed a new algorithm called "RNAcode", a
program to detect coding regions in multiple sequence alignments that is optimized for emerging applications not covered by current protein gene finding software. Our algorithm combines evolutionary information from nucleotide substitution and gap patterns in a unified framework and also deals with real-life issues such as alignment and sequencing errors. It uses an explicit statistical model with no machine learning component and can therefore be applied "out of the box", without any training, to data from all domains of life.
I will demonstrate how RNAcode was used in combination with mass spectrometry experiments to predict and confirm seven novel short peptides in E. coli that have evaded annotation so far. As another example of a typical application, I will show how RNAcode can be used together with the structural RNA gene finder RNAz to study ambiguous cases of dual function genes that function on both the RNA and protein level.
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| Contact: |
Patrice Macaluso
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2:00 PM - 3:20 PM
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Resolution Pharmacology
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| Description: |
Thomas Van Dyke, DDS, Ph.D., Vice President for Clinical and Translational Research and Chair of Periodontology, Forsyth Institute, Cambridge, MA. Boston University School of Medicine, 72 East Concord St, Room L-112. Free and open to the public. Part of the Current Topics in Pharmacological Sciences Seminar Series sponsored by the Department of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics, Boston University School of Medicine. Refreshments at 1:45 pm, BUSM, R-Building 6th Floor.
www.bumc.bu.edu/busm-pm
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| Contact: |
Kristina Bigdeli
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| Thursday, February 10, 2011
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Noon - 2:00 PM
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Obesity and its association with diabetes and periodontal disease
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| Description: |
Location: The Forsyth Institute, Seminar Room A
245 First St., 17th Floor
Cambridge
Speaker: Edward J. Shillitoe, PhD
Department of Microbiology & Immunology
State University of New York College of Medicine
Summary: Obesity has developed into an epidemic in the western world, along with associated conditions such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease. The cause of these conditions is poorly understood, but they can be reproduced in animal models simply by changing the balance of the normal flora. In humans, obesity and diabetes are treated most effectively by stomach bypass surgery, which alters both the immune response and the composition of the bacterial flora. This presentation will therefore outline the evidence that obesity and its associated conditions are an infectious epidemic, and will suggest how research might lead to improved management and prevention.
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Pam Quattrocchi
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3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
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4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
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Bidwell Memorial Lecture: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease): Lessons from Genetics
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| Description: |
Speaker Robert H. Brown, Jr., D.Phil., M.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Neurology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA
Place Singleton Auditorium, 46-3002
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is an adult-onset degenerative disorder of motor neurons, typically leading to paralysis and death in five years or less. About 10% of cases are inherited, usually as dominant traits (familial ALS or FALS). Over the last two decades, several FALS genes have been identified, including SOD1, TDP43 and FUS/TLS. Numerous investigations support the view that the mutant proteins are unstable and readily provoked to misfold, thereby acquiring toxic properties. Transgenic expression of mutant SOD1 protein in mice and cells generates animal and cell-based models of FALS, which have assisted in elucidating molecular events and targets for therapy. More recent data suggest that post-translational modifications of non-mutant SOD1 confer toxic attributes on the protein in sporadic ALS, mimicking the influence of the SOD1 mutations in FALS. These investigations have identified broad themes in the biology of motor neuron disease as well as approaches to therapy; these concepts are likely to be relevant to other neurodegenerative disorders.
http://bcs.mit.edu/newsevents/colloquia.html
References (Bidwell 2011)
1. Rosen DR, Siddique T, Patterson D, Figelwicz DA, Sapp P, Hentati A, Donaldson D, Goto J, O'Regan, Den H, Rahamani Z, Krisus A, Berger R, Tanzi RE, Haperin JJ, Herzfeldt B, Van denBergh R, Hung W, Bird T, Deng G, Mulder DW, Smyth C, Nigel G, Soriano E, Pericak-Vance MA, Haines J, Rouleau GA, Gusella JS, Horvitz RH, Brown RH Jr. Mutations in Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase gene are associated with familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Nature 362:59-62, 1993.
2. Kwiatkowski TJ, Bosco DA, LeClerc AL, Tamrazian E,VandenBerg CR, Russ C, Davis A, Gilchrist J, Kasarskis EJ, Munsat T, Valdmanis P, Rouleau GA, Hosler BA, Cortelli P, de Jong PJ, Yoshinaga Y, Haines JL, Pericak-Vance MA, Yan J, Ticozza N, Siddique T, McKenna-Yasek D, Sapp, PC, Horvitz HR, Landers JE, Brown RH, Jr. Mutations in the FUS/TLS gene on chromosome 16 cause familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Science 323(5918):1205-8, 2009.
3. Bosco DA, Morfini G, Karabacak NM , Song Y, Gros-Louis F, Pasinelli P, Goolsby H, Fontaine BA, Lemay N, McKenna-Yasek D, Frosch MP, Agar JN, Julien J-P, Brady ST, Brown RH, Jr. Wild-type and mutant superoxide dismutase share conformational alterations and trigger a common pathogenic mechanism in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Nature Neuroscience, Nov;13(11):1396-403, 2010.
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| Contact: |
Kathleen Dickey
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4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
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Progress in understanding the mechanism of short-term and long-term memory
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| Description: |
2011 MIT Colloquium on Brain and Cognition
Speaker John Lisman
Professor of Biology
Brandeis University
Time 4pm, Departmental Tea immediately following.
Date Thursday, 10 February 2011
Place Singleton Auditorium, 46-3002
Host Michael Fee
Abstract:
I will describe recent progress in understanding two forms of memory. Short-term memory can be stored by the persistent firing of neurons. Multiple items can be held in short-term memory and our recent work on the entorhinal cortex suggests that this involves theta and gamma frequency oscillations. This cortical region has two modes, a predictive (recall) mode and a retrospective (short-term memory) mode. These modes alternate in seconds. Our analysis of grid cell firing during the retrospective mode shows that short-term memories about different recently visited positions are active in different gamma cycles of a theta cycle. A theta-gamma code may thus be fundamental mechanism by which cortex and hippocampus represent multi-item messages. In the second part of my talk I will describe tests of the hypothesis that synaptic strength is stored by the complex of CaMKII with NR2B. Using 2-photon FRET, we found that LTP induction produces a synapse-specific increase in the complex. We then showed that the CN class of CaMKII inhibitors dissociates the CaMKII/NMDAR complex and thereby reverses LTP. This complex can thus serve as a molecular storage site for long-term memory.
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| Contact: |
Vivi Hinh
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4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
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6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
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6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
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Alternative Careers for Scientists & Engineers
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| Description: |
If you are exploring your options, leaving your job, or want to learn more about career choices, please join us. You will meet an extensive panel of "One-Night Mentors" who have experience breaking into and thriving in careers outside of academia. The Mentors will give short presentations, and then will be available for "speed networking" at separate tables where you can learn more about their careers and the paths that led them there. Topics include:
Business Development
Science Writing
Medical Liaison
Bioprocess Technology
IP Law
Technology Transfer
Operations & Services
And much, much more! Come to learn, expand your reach and broaden your perspective. Everyone is welcome to attend, light dinner and refreshments are included.
http://www.westorg.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=122827
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| Contact: |
Susan Silberman
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| Friday, February 11, 2011
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Noon - 1:30 PM
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Neural networks underlying top-down enhancement and suppression of visual processing.
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| Description: |
Adam Gazzaley, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry
Director, Neuroscience Imaging Center
University of California, San Francisco
Date: February 11th, 2011
Time: 12 PM
Location: Bldg. 46, Rm. 3002
Abstract:
Top-down modulation is a bi-directional process that underlies our ability to focus our attention on task-relevant stimuli and ignore irrelevant distractions by differentially enhancing or suppressing neural activity in sensory cortical regions. I will first present evidence using fMRI and EEG in younger and older adults that demonstrates that enhancement and suppression are dissociable processes. It is widely believed that this top-down modulation is not an intrinsic property of visual cortices, but is achieved via functional communication between sensory brain regions and a distributed network of frontal and parietal regions. I will next present fMRI data that reveals visual cortical areas that selectively process relevant information are functionally connected with a frontal-parietal network, while those processing irrelevant information are simultaneously coupled with the 'default-network'. This provides the first evidence that sensory cortical regions are differentially and dynamically coupled with distinct networks based on task goals. Lastly, using a multi-modal approach that couples fMRI, rTMS and EEG, I will present evidence for a direct role of the inferior frontal junction (IJF) in top-down enhancement and suppression, and its influence on subsequent working memory. All of the data presented will explore the role of top-down control networks in mediating the interaction between attention and memory systems.
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| Contact: |
Vivi Hinh
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1:30 PM - 2:45 PM
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Week of Sunday, February 6, 2011
