Date/Time: 18th of July 2017, 13:00-14:00

Venue: CBCB Baddiley-Clark Building, large meeting room level 2

Abstract:  

Gene expression is a fundamental process that occurs in all cells and is related to all biomedical phenomena. Gene expression is encoded in different parts of the genome in a non-modular manner and based on organism specific codes. Thus, today we understand only a small fraction of the gene expression codes, and most of the gene expression models are very partial and can provide very limited predictions.

In our research, we aimed at developing generic/universal approaches for understanding, modeling and engineering the way gene expression is encoded in the genetic material. In this talk I will review our multidisciplinary strategy and concepts, and some recent key results.    Among others, I will describe whole cell biophysical simulations of translation, and unsupervised information theoretic approaches for gene expression modeling.

I will demonstrate how these tools can help us understand fundamental phenomena in molecular evolution and functional genomics, and will demonstrate some biotechnological applications related to our models. 

 

Biography:

Tamir Tuller is an Associate Professor, the head of the Laboratory of Computational Systems and Synthetic Biology at Tel-Aviv University. He has a multidisciplinary academic background in engineering, life science, computer science, and medical science (four BSc, two MSc studies, and two PhD titles). Prof. Tuller is the author of more than 110 peer reviewed scientific articles and received various awards and fellowships.
He performs multidisciplinary research focusing on various aspects of gene expression and specifically mRNA translation. Among others, he aims at developing novel approaches for modeling and engineering gene expression, and employs synthetic biology tools for understanding the way gene expression is encoded in the genetic material.