Masterpiece Theater - Recent Classics in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics

Biochemistry 816, Fall Semester, 2009

Location: Department Library (Room 6006) at 12:00 noon each Tuesday 

            This seminar series is an instructional activity of the Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Genetics Graduate Program.  All academic personnel affiliated with the Program are urged to attend regularly, and graduate students are required to attend.  Literature presentations will focus on a timely aspect in Biochemistry/Molecular Genetics by utilizing recent journal articles.  All presentations are to be illustrative (e.g. redraw graphs and data tables to simplify and to make displays readable).  The literature is not merely to be presented, but carefully critiqued.  The scope of each student presentation should be limited to one or two papers to make this in-depth critique possible.  Faculty presentations, however, will focus on more broadly-based reviews.

            This semester, the course will be organized around four pre-selected topics, each of which will occupy 3 weeks total.  In the first week of a topic, a faculty member will introduce the subject, provide an historical context, review critical findings, and set the stage for the work that will be presented by students in the two subsequent weeks.  Faculty members will also have guided the students who are presenting to appropriate articles. 

            As in the past, each student/faculty group is expected to plan and practice their series together.  As an additional aid to learning the art of presentation, either Rong Li, David Auble, or Joyce Hamlin will critique the talk with the student on the Friday of Monday before the talk.  On the preceding Friday, the presenter also should circulate a brief summary outlining the major points to be covered along with the citations for the journal articles to be discussed.  Each week there will continue to be a faculty member within the department assigned to critique the student's presentation (one-on-one after the talk) and also a student critic who will stimulate discussion by asking questions during the presentation.  Faculty critics who cannot attend their designated presentation:  please find a substitute critic.

Date Presenter Student Facutly Topic/Faculty
    Critic  Critic helper
         
Sep. 8 Weibin Shi     Human genetics
Sep. 15 Ramya Viswanathan Sutirtha Datta Dan Burke Ira Hall
Sep. 22 Dan Harmon Chris Jingle Bill Pearson Joyce Hamlin
         
Sep. 29 Patrick Grant     Chromatin
Oct. 13 Jaime Miller Kunal Poorey Todd Stukenberg Pat Concannon
Oct. 20 Stacy Crum Erdem Sendinc David Auble Ira Hall
         
Oct. 27 David Wotton     Transc. regulation
Nov. 3 Greg Di Micco Melissa Wells Marty Mayo Joyce Hamlin
Nov. 10 Jeff Gagan Ankit Malhotra Bryce Paschal Dan Foltz
         
Nov. 17 Sepideh Khorasanizadeh     RNA struct./recognition
Dec. 1 Meghan Barnhart Glen Bjerke Ed Egelman Patrick Concannon
Dec. 8 Chelsi Snow Joseph Johnson Jeff Smith Dan Foltz
 

*Within each topic, the order of student presentations may be changed.  Faculty critics may also switch time slots.