Dr. Dimitris Papamichail and
Dr. Christopher Murphy, TCNJ

September 23, 2014
12:30 – 1:30pm
SCP-101

Dr. Dimitris Papamichail, Department of Computer Science

“Alglorithmic Redesign of Protein Coding Genes”

Abstract: The emerging field of synthetic biology is broadly defined as the area of intersection of biology and engineering that focuses on the modification or creation of novel biological components and systems that do not have a counterpart in nature. Freedom in de novo design of synthetic constructs provides significant power in studying the impact of genomic change to phenotypic variation, verifying hypotheses on the functional information encoded in nucleic and amino acids. Here I will present the theory behind gene design in the context of optimizing a protein coding sequence for particular desired properties while simultaneously coding for a given amino acid sequence.

Dr. Christopher Murphy, Associate Provost for Curriculum and Liberal Learning and Department of Biology

“Acoustic Communication in Treefrogs”

Abstract: Computers and the audio technology derived from the music industry have made the study of acoustic communication in animals both sophisticated and relatively inexpensive. Male anuran amphibians (frogs and toads) produce loud, energetically expensive calls to attract females, and females choose among calling males based on call characteristics that indicate species identity and male “quality.” In this presentation, I describe a set of experiments that both illustrates the use of computer and audio technology in the study of mate choice and reveals some surprising perceptual abilities on the part of female treefrogs.