Alireza Zamani
Ratcliff Lab
Abstract
The evolution of multicellular life from single-celled ancestors is one of the most radical shifts in the history of life on earth, and sets the stage for evolution of more complex life forms. Despite the significance of this transition, we know little about the process by which cells first assemble groups and form multicellular organisms. We study this problem experimentally; a single mutation in the ACE2 gene of Baker’s yeast S. cerevisiae prevents mother and daughter cells from separating after cellular division. These yeast clusters, called ‘snowflake’ yeast, comprise a few hundred cells and grow to a maximum diameter of 200 microns. To evolve larger multicellular size, snowflake yeast clusters must mitigate forces strong enough to fracture cell-cell bonds. After a year of artificial selection for larger multicellular size, five populations of snowflake yeast surprisingly evolved to grow to a maximum diameter of 1 mm. In this work we investigate how nascent multicellular clusters evolve to overcome substantial mechanical constraints and dramatically increase their size.
Event Details
The 2019 Women in Science and Technology (WST) Distinguished Lecturer is Maria Zuber.
Maria Zuber is the E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is also MIT's vice president for research, responsible for research administration and policy. She oversees the MIT Lincoln Laboratory and more than a dozen interdisciplinary research laboratories and centers.
Zuber's research bridges planetary geophysics and the technology of space-based laser and radio systems. Since 1990, she has held leadership roles with scientific experiments or instrumentation on 10 NASA missions, mapping the Moon, Mars, Mercury, and several asteroids. Notably, she was principal investigator of the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory or GRAIL mission.
Her numerous awards include MIT's James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award, the highest honor MIT bestows to its faculty. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society,. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Geological Society, and the American Geophysical Union.
Zuber is the first woman to lead a science department at MIT and to lead a NASA planetary mission. In 2013, President Obama appointed her to the National Science Board. In 2018 ,she was reappointed by President Trump. She served as board chair from 2016 to 2018.
This lecture is co-sponsored by the College of Sciences.
Reception follows lecture. RSVP: mary.fox@gatech.edu
About the WST Distinguished Lecture Series
This lecture series honors outstanding contributors to understandings of, and positive impact for, women, science, and technology. It is an annual event open to the Georgia Tech community and the public.
Event Details
Your ghost host with the most, Professor Morte', brings you a special SCIENCE version of the Silver Scream Spookshow for the Atlanta Science Festival! Morte' and his gang of ghouls will entertain you before the film and your favorite genetically-modified rock band, Leucine Zipper and the Zinc Fingers, will play before the show!
The band features College of Sciences' Michael Evans, Jennifer Leavey, and Joe Mendelson.
Tickets available at the door. Doors open at 1 p.m.
Note: This is the matinee show. A second show will take place at 10 p.m.
More information
Event Details
This interdisciplinary colloquium and networking event has two goals: (1) to forge connections across Georgia Tech straddling the boundaries between technology development and hypothesis testing in the search for life’s beginnings and (2) to explore collaborative ideas among participants.
The event has two sections: (1) space exploration technology and planetary science and (2) the chemistry and biology of the origins and the search for life. The event comprises presentations and talks by early-career scientists – graduate students, undergraduates, and postdoctoral fellows – working in the exciting fields of space and planetary science, engineering, and astrobiology across Georgia Tech and greater Atlanta.
Confirmed Plenary Speakers
Distinguished members of the global astrobiology community will deliver plenary lectures. Confirmed speakers include:
Kevin Hand is a deputy project scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He founded the nonprofit organization Cosmos Education and was its president until 2007.
As a planetary scientist and astrobiologist, his research focuses on numerical modeling, laboratory experiments, and instrument development to advance our understanding of the physics and chemistry of icy moons in the outer solar system. He is also interested in characterizing the connection between terrestrial cryosphere processes and the climate change record.
He is currently involved in projects connected to NASA’s Europa mission which will conduct detailed investigation on whether the icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life.
Sara Walker is an assistant professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University (ASU). She is deputy director of ASU’s Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, and associate director of the ASU-Santa Fe Institute Center for Biosocial Complex Systems.
She co-founded the astrobiology-themed social website SAGANet and is a member of the board of directors of Blue Marble Space Institute of Science.
Her work centers on in the origin of life and how to find life on other worlds. She is most interested in whether there are “laws of life” – related to how information structures the physical world – that could universally describe life here Earth and other planets.
She is active in public engagement in science, with appearances at the World Science Festival, the television series “Through the Wormhole,” and the public radio program “Science Friday.”
Paul Steffes is a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He performed his doctoral research at Stanford University, where he concentrated on microwave radio occultation experiments using the Voyager and Mariner spacecraft, with specific interest in microwave absorption in planetary atmospheres.
In 1982, he joined the faculty of Georgia. His research, focusing on microwave and millimeter-wave remote sensing and radio astronomy, has been sponsored by NASA, NSF, the SETI Institute, and industry.
He has been involved with numerous NASA missions, including Pioneer-Venus, Magellan, the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS), the High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS), and Juno (Jupiter Polar Orbiter).
Registration and Abstract Submission
Registration for the 2019 Exploration and Origins Colloquium is open. Please note:
- Abstracts must be no more than 2000 characters including spaces.
- Abstracts will be accepted as written, so please check for spelling and grammar.
- No e-mails or PDF uploads are allowed.
To submit an abstract and register as a presenter, click here.
For general registration (for those who are not presenters), click here.
Locations:
Keynote and oral presentations will take place in room 1005, Krone Engineered Biosystems Building (EBB), 950 Atlantic Drive, NW, Atlanta. GA 30332.
The poster session and networking event will be in held in the first- and second-floor atriums of the Molecular Science and Engineering Building (MoSE), 901 Atlantic Drive NW, Atlanta, GA 30318.
For more information, visit the website here. For other questions, contact us
Organizing Committee
- Peter Colin, postdoctoral fellow, School of Biological Sciences
- Zijian Li, Ph.D. student, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
- Tyler Roche, Ph.D. student, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry
- Micah Schaible, postdoctoral fellow, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry
- Pengxiao Xu, Ph.D. student, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
- George Zaharescu, postdoctoral fellow, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Faculty Advisor: Martha Grover, professor, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Event Details
Young Jang, Ph.D.
School of Biological Sciences
Goergia institute of Technology
Abstract
Mitochondrial biology has become an intense area of research owing to its unique physiological and pathophysiological roles in a variety of disease conditions. In this seminar, I will review the current literature on some of the non-conventional roles of mitochondria that are possibly stemmed from endosymbiosis (i.e., mitochondrial-derived peptides, mitochondrial proteostasis, intercellular mitochondrial transfer). I will also discuss some of the ways we can exploit these features of mitochondria as a therapeutic intervention.
Cookies and coffee will be served.
Event Details
Kevin Pitts is Professor of Physics and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, University of Illinois. He is one of three finalists for the College of Sciences Dean search. He will present his vision of the college in this public seminar.
More information about Pitts is here.
Event Details
Susan Lozier is Distinguished Professor of Ocean Sciences, Duke University, and
President-Elect of the American Geophysical Union. She is one of three finalists for the College of Sciences Dean search. She will present her vision of the college in this public seminar.
More information about Lozier is here.
Event Details
Rodolfo Torres is University Distinguished Professor of Mathematics, University of Kansas. He is one of three finalists for the College of Sciences Dean search. He will present his vision of the college in this public seminar.
More information about Torres is here.
Event Details
Department of Biology
University of Washington
Discoveries in modern biology are increasingly driven by quantitative understanding of complex data. The work in my lab lies at an emerging, fertile intersection of computation and biology. I develop data-driven analytic methods that are applied to, and are inspired by, neuroscience questions. Discovering principles of neural computation is of fundamental importance in biology: How does a collection of neurons and their interconnections give rise to such richness and flexibility of function? Projects in my lab explore neural computations in diverse organisms. We work with theoretical collaborators on developing methods, and with experimental collaborators studying insects, rodents, and primates. The common theme in our work is the development of methods that leverage the escalating scale and complexity of neural and behavioral data to find interpretable patterns. In this talk, I will highlight three research threads. The first focuses on a mathematical framework for spatiotemporal decomposition of large-scale data. The second tackles the challenge of understanding human neural activity "in the wild," outside traditional experimental conditions. The third seeks to uncover principles of hyper-efficient sensing supporting agile flight in winged insects.
Event Details
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology
Dr. McCauley began his career as a fisherman in the Port of Los Angeles, but migrated to marine science and now serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology. McCauley has a degree in political science and a degree in biology from the University of California at Berkeley and a PhD from Stanford University. He did postdoctoral research at Stanford University and UC Berkeley. Dr. McCauley is an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in the Ocean Sciences.
Host: Dr. Mark Hay
Event Details
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