Events  Deals  Jobs  NFT NYC 2024 
    Sign in  
 
 
With Cheryl Hayashi (Curator & Dir. Sackler Institute For Comparative Genomics @ American Museum of Natural History).
Tue, Dec 11, 2018 @ 04:00 PM   FREE   NY Genome Center, 101 6th Ave
 
     
 
 
              

      
 
Sign up for our awesome New York
Tech Events weekly email newsletter.
   
LOCATION
EVENT DETAILS
Cheryl Y. Hayashi, PhD
Curator, Professor & Leon Hess Director of Comparative Biology Research
Director of the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics
American Museum of Natural History

*Photo Credit: AMNH/R. Mickens

Talk Title:Caught in the Web: Unraveling the Complexity of Spider Silk Genes

Spiders are unparalleled for the many types of silks they spin. Spider silks are mostly protein & this presentation will focus on the genes that encode those proteins. Dr. Hayashi will trace the history of advances made in characterizing silks. Not only are spider silks remarkably diverse, but they also have remarkable mechanical properties with vast potential for human applications. For example, some types of silks are strong & tough fibers that would work well in high performance textiles & composites, while other silks are adhesives that resist hardening & have viscosities that can be modulated by humidity. As such, there is persistent demand for the mass production of silks, which requires knowledge of the underlying gene sequences. Spidroins (spider fibroins), the most abundant proteins in spider silks, have repetitive internal regions flanked by non-repetitive amino- & carboxyl-terminal regions. The terminal regions are integral for silk processing & fiber formation, while the repetitive regions are integral for fiber self-assembly & mechanical properties. Full characterization of spidroin genes has been challenging due to their great lengths & extreme repetitiveness.Dr. Hayashi & her collaborators have been combining transcriptomic, proteomic,large insert genomic cloning, target genome capture, andnow with the New York Genome Center,whole genome sequencing,to determine the genetic blueprints for spidroins.

Dr. Cheryl Y. Hayashiis a Curator in Invertebrate Zoology, Professor in the Richard Gilder Graduate School, & Leon Hess Director of Comparative Biology Research, & the Director of the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History. She earned her PhD in Biology from Yale, did postdoctoral research in molecular biology at the University of Wyoming, & was a Professor of Biology at the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Hayashi studies the functional genomics of adaptive molecules, with particular emphasis on the evolution & biomimetic potential of remarkable molecules produced by spiders. She is recognized as a pioneer in the study of silks & is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Her integrative research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Army Research Office, US Department of Energy, & Air Force Office of Scientific Research, among others.

To learn more about Dr. Cheryl Y. Hayashi, visit Google Scholar - Cheryl Y. Hayashi, PhD


Q&A Moderator:
Michael Zody, PhD
Senior Director, Computational Biology
New York Genome Center


 
 
 
 
© 2024 GarysGuide      About    Feedback    Press    Terms