DNA is not destiny

Although DNA cannot be changed, its packaging can be, explains Biology Chair Victor Corces. Growing understanding of how histones guide genes offers hope for therapies to treat a range of disorders. Learn more in this video of the recent "Life of the Mind" lecture by Corces, a leading epigeneticist.

How young mice phone home

Photo montage courtesy Jack Kearse and the Liu Lab

Study: Mothers' brains screen for baby calls

Emory researchers have identified a surprising mechanism in the brains of mother mice that focuses their awareness on the calls of baby mice. Their study, published June 11 in Neuron, found that the high-frequency sounds of mice pups stand out in a mother's auditory cortex by inhibiting the activity of neurons more attuned to lower frequency sounds.

"Previous research has focused on how the excitation of neurons can detect or interpret sounds, but this study shows the key role that inhibition may play in real situations," said Robert Liu, assistant professor of biology and senior author of the study.

Read more.

Watch a video of a mother mouse responding to a baby's call.

Using computers to explore the brain

Purkinje cells are among the most complex neurons in the brain. They can fire enormously fast, generating 100 spikes in activity every second. Hundreds of thousands of Purkinje cells are located in the cerebellar cortex, and each of these cells receives inputs from up to 200,000 other neurons.

"That just tells you how densely wired the brain is – it's a complex grid of connections," says biologist Dieter Jaeger. His lab is working at the forefront of computational neuroscience. He uses software to make 3D models of neurons from rat brains, and then applies differential equations to these models to simulate neural processes via the Emory High Performance Compute Cluster.

"We're trying to figure out the essence of information processing in the brain, and find clues to help cure diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's," says Jaeger. He compares the work of mapping the brain's processes to that of the early explorers of the Earth: "We're still finding new continents as we go."

Jaeger is one of the featured speakers in this week's workshop on Computational Modeling of Complex Human Systems. You can meet him and Emory scientists from a range of disciplines involved in computational modeling at a reception this afternoon, from 4 to 6 pm., in Cox Ballroom.

Epigeneticist to give 'Life of Mind' talk

The "nature versus nurture" debate has taken new twists and turns in recent years, as epigeneticists have started unraveling the mysteries of how genetic material is packaged. Chair of Biology Victor Corces, whose lab is working at the leading edge of epigenetics, will give a talk on Monday, March 16, entitled "Beyond the Genome: DNA is Not Destiny."

The free, public lecture begins at 4 p.m. in the Jones Room of Woodruff Library.

For more about the work of Corces, Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Biology, read his profile in Emory Report. He is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor, who used a $1 million grant to create RISE, a program that brings inner-city high school students to campus to work alongside Emory students in his lab.

James Taylor's Guide to the Galaxy

"As computer tools become more sophisticated, it's critical to provide every detail of how an analysis is done, in ways that are verifiable. If you can't reproduce the results, you can't really trust them," says James Taylor assistant professor of biology and math and computer science.

Taylor is the co-developer of Galaxy, an open-source software system that makes high-throughput data analysis reproducible and easily shared among experimental biologists and other researchers. Anyone with a web browser can analyze genomic or other complex data with Galaxy.

Contact Taylor to request a training session for your group. Better yet, enroll in one of his courses.

Genomic Technology recently named Taylor a rising star in genomics research. Read more about his work in this Emory Report profile.

Chemist seeks collaborators for CNS research

Huw Davies' organic chemistry lab is developing methods aimed at making drug production highly scalable and cost-effective. His group patented a rhodium catalyst that can selectively produce single mirror images of molecules. Like hands, many carbon-based drug compounds occur as mirror-image pairs. While the "left hand" of the compound may have a valuable pharmaceutical effect, the "right hand" could produce an unwanted side effect, making selectivity critical.

In his latest paper, Davies demonstrates how his group's methods can make a new class of compounds to selectively activate targets in the central nervous system, and serve as potent monoamine transporter inhibitors. "It's conceivable that we could apply this new chemistry to develop molecular probes to study the biology of these targets, or develop therapeutic agents for depression and cocaine addiction," says Davies, who hopes to find collaborators at Emory to expand this research.

For more about Davies research, read his profile in Emory Report.

Pay a virtual visit to Huw Davies' lab.