Unsolved Problems Session

For each of these half-hour sessions, a CMB faculty member will pose an unsolved question from his/her own research and the whole group will brainstorm approaches and solutions.

 9:00 Dr. Jim Thomas (Genome Sciences), "Why are zinc-finger transcription factors subject to strong positive selection?"
9:30 Dr. Hong Qian (Applied Mathematics), "From biochemical reaction networks to cellular states: a computational approach"
10:00 Dr. John Mittler (Microbiology), "Unsolved problems in HIV-1 dynamics and evolution"
10:30 Dr. Walter L. Ruzzo (Computer Science and Engineering), "Scoring RNAs"

11:00-11:20 Break

CMB Student Presentations

11:20 Shameek Biswas, "Characterizing Population Structure in Variance Components of Gene Expression Variation in Humans"
11:45 Jonathan Carlson, "HLA-mediated evolution in HIV-1: implications for T-cell-based vaccine design"

12:10-1:30 Lunch. Continue the Unsolved Problems discussions, meet and mingle with other CMB members over lunch.

1:30 Chris Saunders, "A mechanistic model of coding sequence evolution with context-dependent mutation rates"
1:55 Cindy Desmarais, "Exploring evolution and diversity in the human genome using the HKA test"

2:20-2:40 Break

2:40 James Thompson, "Inference of Spatial Constraints in Protein Structure Prediction"
3:05 Charla Lambert, "On the use of starlike genealogies in estimating ages of selective sweeps"

3:30 - 3:40 Prizes for "Best Student Presentation" and "Knottiest Student Problem"

Keynote Presentation

3:40 - 4:40 Dr. Steve Henikoff (FHCRC), "Epigenomic profiling to study histone dynamics"

4:40 - 5:00 Discussion