Calendar of Events

Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania “Genome folding, unfolding, and refolding in the mammalian brain” Hosted by Hilary Coller

TITLE: "Mechanisms of robust entrainment of biological oscillators involved in gastric peristalsis.” ABSTRACT: Oscillator entrainment is a widely observed phenomenon in natural systems. Using a computational modeling approach, we decipher the essential intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms of robust entrainment of biological oscillators involved in gastric peristalsis. Specifically, we show that the constitutive intercellular IP3-facilitated pacemaker […]

TITLE: "Defining chromatin accessibility and molecular dysregulation in Down Syndrome." ABSTRACT: Despite accumulating almost two centuries of medical information, the exact mechanisms underlying Down Syndrome (DS) developmental pathology remain unknown. DS is caused by trisomy of chromosome21 (T21), but without pinpointing the way in which T21 confers molecular dysfunctions and subsequently impairs neurodevelopment, it has been […]

Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Academic Personnel, UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics “Citizen Scientific Racism: White Nationalist Appropriations of Genetic Research” Hosted by Christina Palmer  

TITLE: "Advancing admixture graph estimation via maximum likelihood network orientation." ABSTRACT: Admixture, the interbreeding between previously distinct populations, is a pervasive force in evolution. The evolutionary history of populations in the presence of admixture can be modeled by augmenting phylogenetic trees with additional nodes that represent admixture events. However, these admixture graphs present formidable inferential challenges. Exhaustively evaluating all […]

TITLE: "Sources of zeros in single-cell RNA-seq data and how they affect data analysis." ABSTRACT: Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technologies have revolutionized biomedical sciences by enabling genome-wide profiling of gene expression levels at an unprecedented single-cell resolution. A distinct characteristic of scRNA-seq data is the vast proportion of zeros unseen in bulk RNA-seq data. Researchers […]

Associate Dean for the Humanities, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor “TBD: History of genetic counseling” Hosted by Christina Palmer

TITLE: "Multimodal radiomic analysis of biparametric MRI to predict biochemical recurrence after radical prostatectomy." ABSTRACT: Integration of information across multiple modalities and biological scales has the potential to improve the prediction of disease outcomes and response to treatments. In this talk, I will discuss our ongoing work to predict prostate cancer aggressiveness by combining information from biparametric […]

TITLE: "A simple, two-step, multivalent binding model predicts IL-2 mutein cell signaling profiles." ABSTRACT: The common γ-chain cytokines are promising immune therapies, but have been limited in their efficacy due to their induction of non-specific immune activation. Here, we visualized immune cell response to both mono- and multivalent γ-chain muteins using a structured dimensionality reduction scheme. […]

Associate director, Gerstner Center for Cancer Diagnostics, Broad Institute “Ultrasensitive detection of minimal residual disease” Hosted by Jasmine Zhou

TITLE: "Genome-wide survey of mutations influencing protein abundances in yeast" ABSTRACT: Our understanding of how protein-level regulation is encoded in the genome and how protein abundances are affected by DNA sequence variation remains sparse. I will discuss our genetic screen based on large-scale pooled base editing that allows us to capture the effects of thousands […]

TITLE: "Unbiased analysis of single cell RNA sequencing data reveals previously uncharacterized heterogeneity in small cell lung cancer cell lines." ABSTRACT: Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC) accounts for approximately 13% of all new lung cancer diagnoses. SCLC exhibits propensity for early metastasis, rapid cell division, high levels of replication stress, the ability to cope with […]

Associate Professor, Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, Center for Genomic and Computational Biology, Duke University “TBD” Hosted by Jason Ernst

TITLE: "Constructing a Functional Interactome from Published Work to Identify Underrepresented and Integrative Effects of Neuroinflammatory Cytokines on Neural Excitability." ABSTRACT: Maintaining normal excitability is a key function of our nervous system which is subject to ongoing perturbations such as aging and chronic neurodegeneration. Neuroinflammatory responses which are widely associated with injury and disease are […]

TITLE: “Large uncertainty in individual PRS estimation impacts PRS-based risk stratification.” ABSTRACT: Large-scale genome-wide association studies have enabled polygenic risk scores (PRS), which estimate the genetic value of an individual for a given trait. Since PRS accuracy is typically assessed using cohort-level metrics, uncertainty in PRS estimates at individual level remains underexplored. In this talk, […]

TITLE: "Metabolic dependencies of ecDNA and HSR focal amplification modes and plasticity." ABSTRACT: The focal amplification (FA) of genes that support the uncontrolled growth and proliferation of cells (i.e., oncogenes) on homogeneous chromosomal staining regions (HSRs, chromosomal) ans extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) is a hallmark of resistant cancers. However, it remains an open question whether oncogene […]

TITLE: "DoubletCollection: An R package that integrates cutting-edge computational doublet-detection methods." ABSTRACT: The existence of doublets is a key confounder in single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data analysis. There are several computational methods for detecting doublets from scRNA-seq data. We develop an R package DoubletCollection to integrate the installation and execution of those methods. DoubletCollection also […]