Professor, Buchanan Endowed Chair of Biology, The University of Virginia's College at Wise, VA
How do single celled protists fine-tune their biochemical makeup to accommodate variations in ambient energies (temperature and light)? Single celled photosynthetic protists are important primary producers in aquatic ecosystems and are a focus of the algal biofuels industry. In the natural environment these organisms must adapt to daily and seasonal environmental changes in light, temperature, and inorganic nutrients. Specifically, I am interested in how lipid profiles change to accommodate temperature and light ranges that are not considered stressful, but am curious to explore any pathways or genes that are up/down-regulated by a change in an environmental variable. In addition to this research focus I am also interested in open-inquiry undergraduate teaching labs that introduce our students to the cutting edge of technology. The transcriptomic data sets produced through the Cold Spring Harbor RNASeq workshop were made from the single celled green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (strain CC-503 cw92 mt+) cultured at two temperatures within the optimal range of Chlamydomonas growth and maintenance (20°C and 30°C at 600 µmol photons m-2s-1 illumination). I hope to use these data sets for an initial genome-wide comparison of gene expression with a single variable (temperature). Analyses will be conducted in the lab portion of an upper-level plant molecular biology course with an open-inquiry format. The intent is to give upper level undergraduates the opportunity to analyze RNA-Seq data, identify candidate genes, formulate questions and hypotheses, and design experiments to test their hypotheses.
Materials are under development.
Materials are under development.
