Internal Seminar: Luscombe Unit and Qi Unit

Join us for November's first Internal Seminar Series on November 13, from 17:00 to 18:00 in C700 (Lab3). This month's first seminar features the Genomics and Regulatory Systems Unit (Nicholas M. Luscombe) and the Energy Materials and Surface Sciences Unit (Yabing Qi).

Genomics and Regulatory Systems Unit (Nicholas M. Luscombe)

Speaker : Anna Poetsch

Title : Why do genes start, where they start?

Abstract : Proteins that bind to specific locations on the DNA usually bind to certain sequence motifs that tell them where to go. The DNA reading enzyme, RNA polymerase II, binds the protein encoding parts of the DNA and transcribes the DNA of these genes into RNA. However, in order to start this process, the polymerase does not bind to a specific sequence motif itself. Still, it forms a quite unique bimodal distribution pattern around the start of transcription. This pattern differs from gene to gene and affects how the gene is regulated.

In this talk I will try to dissect how the position of the enzyme connects to transcriptional start and how DNA motifs and other properties of DNA sequence content contribute to this relation.

The precise regulation of transcription is crucial for a healthy cell. It goes wrong in countless diseases, such as cancer, where inappropriate silencing or activation of genes is a major driver of the disease.

Energy Materials and Surface Sciences Unit (Yabing Qi)

Speaker : Yan Jiang

Title : General working principle of a solar cell and the story of the perovskite solar cell

Abstract : Burning of the fossil fuels can not meet the requirement of the human activities and a clean energy is in urgent. The solar energy is one of the solution. This talk will focus on the general working principle of a solar cell device e.g. how the carries can be generated and transferred to the different electrode. The second part will focus on the introduction of the perovskite solar cell, which is new type of solar cell and is called the game changer of the photovoltaics. The history and the future of the perovskite solar cell will be included.