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Kopriva Science Seminar Series
Past Speakers
Paul Cross
Monday, November 2, 2009
Paul Cross, a wildlife research biologist with the USGS’ Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, presented a lecture on "Disease Ecology and Zoonoses in a Hot, Flat and Crowded World." Cross’ research combines fieldwork and computer modeling to study the effects of host behavior and population structure on disease dynamics, primarily in wildlife species. Currently his lab works on the ecology of brucellosis in the elk and bison of the Greater Yellowstone area and chronic wasting disease in deer. Cross also works with collaborators at Pennsylvania State University to discover new pathogens in elk and mule deer.
Sunshine Silver
Monday, October 5, 2009
Sunshine Silver is a Ph.D. student in chemistry and biochemistry, and is the recipient of a 2008 Kopriva Graduate Fellowship. She presented a lecture titled "Mechanistic and Spectroscopic Studies of the DNA Repair Spore Photoproduct Lyase."
Sunshine's research focuses on an enzyme found in spore-forming bacteria which enhances the bacteria’s resistance to ultraviolet light, making it very difficult to kill these organisms. |
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Stuart Lipton, M.D., Ph.D.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Stuart Lipton, program director and professor at the Del E. Webb Neuroscience, Aging and Stem Cell Research Center in La Jolla, CA, spoke on "New Drug Treatments and the Future of Stem Cells for the Aging Brain."
Dr. Lipton’s lab developed the first glutamate receptor/channel antagonist drug (Memantine) to be clinically approved for dementia (approved by the European Union in May, 2002 and the FDA in the USA in October, 2003). His lab is also studying the cloning of a gene that programs embryonic stem cells to become nerve cells in the brain. In 2004, Dr. Lipton was the co-recipient of the prestigious Ernst Jung Prize for medicine.
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Ramon Tusell
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Ramon Tusell is a Ph.D. student in chemistry and biochemistry, and is the recipient of a 2008 Kopriva Graduate Fellowship. He presented a lecture titled "Theory of Tryptophan Fluorescence Brightness and
Its Role in Understanding Protein Transformations."
Ramon’s research focuses on the use of tryptophan fluorescence intensity to monitor structural changes in proteins. He works to distinguish between different hypothetical detailed mechanisms that have been proposed for protein folding.
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Ted Berger, Ph.D.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Dr. Berger is a professor of
biomedical engineering at the
Viterbi School of Engineering,
University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA. His research involves the use of experimental and
theoretical approaches to develop biologically-constrained mathematical
and electronic models of
mammalian neural systems. The majority of his current research is focused on the hippocampus, a neural system essential for learning
and memory functions.
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Byron Caughey, Ph.D.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Byron Caughey, Ph.D. spoke on "Prion diseases: mad cows, wasting deer, cannibals, etc." Dr. Caughey, a biochemist, is a Senior Investigator and Chief of the TSE/prion Biochemistry Section of the Laboratory of Persistent Viral Diseases, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health in Hamilton, Montana. His research has shown how rogue proteins, called prions, could propagate and potentially lead to mad cow disease and its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).
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