E2F transcription factors were originally identified as regulators of cell cycle and cellular proliferation. In vivo mouse models have uncovered novel roles for these proteins in different developmental processes. This ...

In this thesis, I provide quantitative descriptions of toothed whale echolocation and foraging behavior, including assessment of the effects of noise on foraging behavior and the potential influence of ocean acoustic ...

Marine thecate heterotrophic dinoflagellates likely play an important role in the consumption of primary productivity and in the trophic structure of the plankton, yet we know little about these species. This thesis expanded ...

Activating mutations in RAS oncogenes commonly arise in human cancers. However, in experimental settings, oncogenic RAS has most often been studied at supraphysiological levels of expression. Importantly, work by others ...

Caspases play an important role in apoptosis, or programmed cell death. In particular, three highly related effector caspases, caspases-3, -6, and -7, translate upstream death signals into the physical manifestations of ...

Nanobiotechnology aims to exploit biomolecular recognition and self-assembly capabilities for integrating advanced materials into medicine and electronics. In particular, peptides have exhibited the ability to specifically ...

Co-evolution of pathogen and host helps drive biological diversity. Unlike viral-host interactions, little is known about the co-evolution of eukaryotic pathogens with their hosts. The intracellular parasite Toxoplasma ...

Understanding how phenotypes evolve through natural selection is a fundamental question of biology. Microbial evolution studies provide the rare opportunity to experimentally elucidate the changes that allow an organism ...

Small non-coding RNAs play an important role in a wide range of cellular events. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are an abundant class of small RNAs that post-transcriptionally repress expression of their target genes. Since miRNA ...