QBIC Journal Club Schedule & Assigned Readings
Juniors - Fall 2011

revised 30 Aug 2011 - please check for errors.

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Date Class Topic / Activity Read for Today Assignments Due Today
24 Aug
discussion & class planning

Syllabus
show up.
31 Aug Motor proteins - molecules that walk

Asbury, C.L., 2005. Kinesin: world's tiniest biped. Curr Opin Cell Biol 17, 89-97.

Yildiz, A., Tomishige, M., Vale, R.D., Selvin, P.R., 2004. Kinesin walks hand-over-hand. Science 303, 676-678.

 Critical summary of Yildiz et al. (2004)
7 Sep

Protein folding and conformation -
mechanism underlying infectious proteins.
(a bit chewey but important – Stanley Prusiner's work was awarded the Nobel Prize)

Pan KM, Baldwin M, Nguyen J, Gasset M, Serban A, Groth D, Mehlhorn I, Huang Z, Fletterick RJ, Cohen FE, Mehlhorn I, Huang Z, Fletterick RJ, Cohenu FE, Prusiner SB. 1993. Conversion of alpha-helices into beta-sheets features in the formation of the scrapie prion proteins. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 90, 10962-10966.

 Critical summary of Pan et al. (1993) and one other paper on same topic.
14 Sep Enzyme kinetics.

Suarez, R. K., Lighton, J. R., Joos, B., Roberts, S. P. and Harrison, J. F. (1996). Energy metabolism, enzymatic flux capacities, and metabolic flux rates in flying honeybees. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 93, 12616-20.

Critical summary of Suarez et al. (1996).
No other paper - you'll be busy with just that.
21 Sep Protein structure & function

Sensory hair cells

Tip link pulls up the gates of ion channels.

Assad, J.A., Shepherd, G.M., Corey, D.P., 1991. Tip-link integrity and mechanical transduction in vertebrate hair cells. Neuron 7, 985-994.

 Critical summary of Assad et al. (1991) and one more recent paper of your choosing from the primary literature on sensory hair-cell tip-linkers.
28 Sep      
5 Oct      
12 Oct      
19 Oct      
26 Oct Experimental design Hurlbert SH (1984) Pseudoreplication and the design of ecological field experiments  Ecol Monogr 54:187-221. Identify an example of pseudoreplication in Krapp et al.
2 Nov Cytoskeleton Unguez, G.A., Zakon, H.H., 1998. Reexpression of myogenic proteins in mature electric organ after removal of neural input. J. Neurosci. 18, 9924-9935. Critical summary of Unguez & Zakon (1998).
9 Nov Cell division Haussmann MF, Winkler DW, O'Reilly KM, Huntington CE, Nisbet ICT, Vleck CM (2003) Telomeres shorten more slowly in long-lived birds and mammals than in short–lived ones.  Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 270:1387-1392 Critical summary of Haussman et al. (2003) and one more recent paper of your choosing from the primary literature on telomeres.
16 Nov Cancer Hanahan, D., Weinberg, R.A., 2011. Hallmarks of cancer: the next generation. Cell 144, 646-674.

Read this review paper through page 657, column 1.
Compile list of all terms you don't know, look them up, and take notes on what you learn.

23 Nov Cancer Same paper as last week Read the rest of the paper, and do the same thing as last week.
30 Nov      
7 Dec