BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Stochastic signal encoding strategies in single cells - James Lock
 e\, Sainsbury Laboratory\, University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20131011T130000Z
DTEND:20131011T140000Z
UID:TALK47952@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Alessio Zaccone
DESCRIPTION:Gene expression can be surprisingly dynamic and heterogeneous.
  This variability\nin gene expression\, even in a clonal population of cel
 ls grown under the same\ncondition\, has been observed in diverse organism
 s\, from mammalian stem cells to\nbacteria. It remains unclear how this va
 riability is generated and what\nfunction it can serve.\n\nWe are using th
 e B. subtilis general stress response regulator sigB as a model\nsystem to
  understand how heterogeneous cell states can be generated. By\ncarrying o
 ut time-lapse microscopy of cells expressing a reporter of sigB\nactivity\
 , we discovered that sigB expression occurs in discrete pulses. The\nregul
 ation of these pulses is input dependent. Energy stress causes sigB to be\
 nactivated in continuous stochastic pulses. Environmental stress\, however
 \,\nresults in a single pulse of sigB activation. By using a combination o
 f\nmathematical modelling and synthetic biology techniques we were able to
 \nunderstand the mechanism of these two different dynamical regulation sch
 emes.\nWe are now testing the function and generality of pulsing as a regu
 latory\nstrategy for the cell.
LOCATION:Small Lecture Theatre\, Cavendish Laboratory
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR