Prof. Eric Jakobsson PhD

ISB 2010 is proud to announce the Keynote speaker for the Symposium, Prof. Eric Jakobsson PhD, Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, Biophysics, Bioengineering and Neuroscience at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Topic: What kind of graph is the Tree of Life? Insights from a domain/motif-based view of molecular biology

Put the phrase “Tree of Life” into the Google image search engine. You will see a fantastic array of images, representing scientific abstraction, mystical inspiration, and art of many different styles. One type of tree that is still common among biologists is an elaboration of the first tree that Charles Darwin drew to represent the lines of descent that he postulated among organisms. But we now know that on the molecular level, of which Darwin had essentially no knowledge, the tree is really a web, with horizontal (recombination) processes of equal importance to the vertical Darwinian process of descent with modification in shaping the current biosphere. Mapping the molecular Web of Life requires the skills and insights of mathematicians, computer scientists, and biologists, and is of intense interest to biotechnologists. An insight into what this map looks like comes from a consideration that there is an important level of biological organization between individual sites on a gene or protein and a complete gene or protein, namely domains and motifs. These confer important and distinct properties on the entire gene, and recombine with domains and motifs from other genes to create novel building blocks that provide a foundation for new directions in evolution. This talk will consider insights into biological function and evolution that emerge from a domain- and motif-centered view of bimolecular organization.