Throughout the semester, Bioinformatics, Computational Biology graduate students have put on seminars as a part of the Institute for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies series, which ends Dec. 6.
The remaining seminar is about elucidation of genotype-phenotype relationships using computational genomics approaches — or clarifying the relation between gene expressions using computational approaches — presented by James Cai, a professor at Texas A&M University with the College of Veterinary Medicine.
“I am excited to visit University of Idaho — a leading Northwest university. I have never been to this part of the U.S. I am also very excited about meeting faculty and students to share common research interests and learn from each other,” Cai said.
The seminar will take place from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in McClure Hall room 209. Cai said he will speak about three main topics, including pervasive hitchhiking at coding and regulatory sites, adaptive evolution of an incretin gene in East Asians and genetic variants contributing to gene expression variability.
“I will also introduce ongoing research in my lab. These include experimental evolution of Penicillium marneffei, threespine stickleback transcriptomics and human population genomics.” Cai said.
IBEST Program Coordinator, Lisha Abendroth said IBEST students recruit the speakers of the seminar to come to UI.
“IBEST is essentially a collaboration between multiple faculty at the university, and it’s an institute to try to bring people together to answer evolutionary questions,” said Hannah Marx, a BCB graduate student. “So it brings together people from biological science backgrounds, people from computational backgrounds and also more mathematics/theoretical backgrounds.”
Marx said the students at IBEST strive to get between four and five speakers per semester. They try to invite speakers from other schools or institutions not restricted to being in the U.S.
Marx said next semester they are hoping to recruit someone from out of the country to present.
“Evolutionary biology might sound — I don’t want to say intimidating, but it might not sound super interesting to lots of people, but actually the speakers are really dynamic,” Marx said. “Since they are chosen by the students, that may help a little bit.”
Cai said human evolution is among the most substantiated concepts in biological science, as well as the most exciting topics for general audience.
“I think other people throughout the university would enjoy it, especially undergrads who are looking to go to grad school,” Marx said. “It is a good opportunity to meet faculty from other universities or even other countries and get some conversations going.”
The spring semester seminar dates are expected to be released soon.
Erin Roetker can be reached at [email protected]