Centre for Research on Biomolecular Interactions presents Assoc. Prof. Katalin A. Hudak, Department of Biology, York University

Talk Title: "Developing genomic resources for a non-model organism"

Abstract: Over the past three years, our research has evolved from being a molecular wet-lab endeavour to one that incorporates our own genome-wide bioinformatic analyses. This new development was borne out of necessity because the species we study, pokeweed, had no sequenced genome or transcriptome. Our rationale for focusing on this plant is that it synthesizes pokeweed antiviral protein, shown to inhibit replication of several plant and animal viruses. Moreover, pokeweed is unusually resistant to both biotic and abiotic stresses, making it an ideal candidate to study, given our rapidly changing environment and agricultural demands. I will focus this talk on how we built the genomic resources we have, what we have learned from them, and how bioinformatics will continue to inform our wet-lab research. For example, we recently published a detailed protocol describing how to computationally predict miRNA/target pairs responsive to stress, with validation by wet-lab methods. I hope that our process will be useful to others, even if they work with a model system whose genome is already known.

Please join us,

Refreshments will be served.