|
|
|
||
|
GRANT WRITING
WORKSHOPS SERIES |
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
AGENDA
Thursday, February 24th,
Social Sciences
Bldg., Room 311
|
|
General Introduction. Outline the specific purpose of a grant abstract and what it should encompass |
|
|
|
Introduce abstracts. Comment on strong and weak elements of the presented case study abstracts. |
Dr. Stephen Craig,
Professor in the department of Chemistry |
|
|
Dr. David McClay,
Professor in the departments of Biology and Neurobiology & Marine
Sciences |
|
|
|
Discussion: Workshop participants will identify strong and weak elements of the presented material. Summarize dos and don’ts in abstract writing |
Dr. Stephen Craig, Professor in the
department of Chemistry Dr. David McClay, Professor in the
departments of Biology and Neurobiology & Marine Sciences |
|
|
Questions and comments. |
|
Questions or comments: discuss them online: http://cierd.cs.duke.edu/forum/
Workshop speakers
Dr. David McClay, Professor in the
departments of Biology and Neurobiology & Marine Sciences
Dr. McClay’s research
interests include three major areas of focus: (1) on contributions of
cell adhesion during two important morphogenetic cell rearrangements in
embryos. At gastrulation a series of molecular
changes in adherens junctions and focal contacts
occurs. Mesoderm cells at ingression lose both of these adhesive structures and
invade the blastocoel. Later, endoderm cells
rearrange to form the archenteron, and in the process both adherens
junctions and focal contacts are altered. We cloned cadherins,
catenins, and integrins to
study these rapid morphogenetic changes that involve an epithelial-mesenchymal cell conversion and convergent-extension cell
rearrangements. Our studies focus on the sequence of events involved in that
switch from an epithelial cell to a mesenchymal cell,
and in the sequence through which the primitive gut is formed. Of importance, Brachyury is involved in the morphogenetic switch that
permits archenteron invagination. (2) to study a number of cell signaling events and transcription
factors in the sea urchin embryo that specify endomesoderm.
A gene regulatory network was built based on data from cell- signaling and
specific transcription factor perturbations . ß-catenin launches the specification and Notch later
subdivides the endomesoderm into mesoderm, plus
endoderm (which fails to receive the Notch signal). Current efforts examine the
mechanisms of these signals and other molecular events that contribute to germ
layer specification (3) Morphogenesis and pattern formation of the neural tube.
We dissect neural tubes of mice as they form. Current analysis examines the
detailed molecular adhesion transitions that assist in the folding of the
neural tube. The normal morphogenesis is being compared to several mutants with
a high penetrance of neural tube defects.
Dr. Stephen Craig, Professor in the
department of Chemistry
Dr. Craig’s research
interests bridge synthetic organic, physical, and materials chemistry. It uses
well-defined molecular interactions to construct increasingly complex molecular
assemblies from small, molecular building blocks. Our goals are first to
explore the fundamental relationships between the structure of the molecular component
and the properties of the assemblies, and then to use the knowledge gained from
those studies in the rational design of systems with novel structure and
function. Research topics under investigation include: (1)
Structure and properties of
self-assembled materials. The molecular recognition properties of
biological and synthetic systems are being used to construct modular building
blocks for reversible, self assembled polymers. Materials made from these
polymers potentially have tunable three-dimensional order on nanometer length
scales, novel adhesive and transport properties, and "self-healing"
abilities. The modularity of the building blocks allows us to do "physical
organic chemistry" on the materials, varying the structure of the
components and observing changes in the properties of the assemblies. The
systematic studies should eventually help guide the rational design of small
molecules whose assemblies have tailored properties. (2) Noncovalent interactions and mechanical forces. The
mechanical properties of materials are traditionally a concern of chemical
engineers rather than organic chemists, because they depend on processing and mesoscale structure more than synthesis and molecular
structure. As materials become smaller (nanotechnology) or more regular (selfóassembly), however, the relationship between
properties and molecular structure is more accessible. A combination of computational
and synthetic model systems will be used to establish how forces are
transferred through noncovalent molecular architectures.
Our approach is "ground up", beginning with the properties of simple
systems and building upon them to create a hierarchal model for the mechanical
behavior of more complex assemblies. (3) Reversible covalent adducts for dynamic assembly. Reversible
assembly processes triggered by molecular recognition are important and
prevalent features of biological systems, but far fewer synthetic systems have
been developed for aqueous media than for organic solvents. The principle
difficulty centers on the fact that most self-assembling systems are built on
networks of complementary hydrogen bonds, which are at best weakly associative
in protic solvents. We propose to augment traditional
noncovalent interactions such as hydrogen-bonding and
hydrophobic interactions with rapidly reversible covalent bonds. The assemblies
thus formed should exhibit a range of interesting properties, including
molecular recognition and catalysis.