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Translation</title></head><body>
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<div><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Hello
All,</font></div>
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<div><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Just wanted to make
you all aware of a seminar series that will be running this fall.
This is a great chance to learn how to read literature and think about
science in an informal setting with small class sizes. The
seminar deals with the process of translation and how it plays such an
important role in the development of all organisms, the abstract below
will give you more of an idea of what it will involve, but if you are
interested or just want to know more come along to the stand on
registration day, we will be there from 1-3 Pm on Tuesday Sept 6 at
the end of the building close to the biology
headquarters.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Hope to see some of
you on Tuesday</font></div>
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<div><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Leah Vardy
(Orr-Weaver Lab)</font></div>
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<div><font face="Times New Roman"><b>7.344 Lost in Translation:
>From Egg to Embryo and Beyond</b></font></div>
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<div><font face="Times New Roman">Advanced undergraduate seminar
series. Fall 2005. Thursdays</font> 11-1pm</div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman">Instructor: Leah Vardy (Orr-Weaver
Lab)</font></div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman">vardy@wi.mit.edu</font></div>
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<div><font face="Times New Roman">Have you ever wondered how an egg
becomes a fly, a worm, a frog, a mouse or a human? Why heads are heads
and tails are tails? While we look so different from the humble toad,
we both use many of the same processes to develop. What lies at the
heart of development includes not just our genes, but also how these
genes are expressed, i.e. how mRNA is regulated. In this course
we will begin to explore some of the ways in which mRNA is regulated
and see the developmental consequences when translation is disrupted.
We will consider flies, frogs and mice to see how they turn on and off
different mRNAs to meet their developmental needs. Topics will include
mRNA localization, which is fundamental in distinguishing the head
from the tail of a fruit fly. We will look at the importance of
protein translation in the maturation of frog and mouse eggs and in
the production of sperm and eggs in a hermaphrodite worm. We will
discuss the variety of ways an embryo can fine-tune its mRNA
expression to ensure production of a protein in the exact space and
time required. Examples will include different ways to activate
and suppress translation, including polyadenylation, the action of
specific RNA binding proteins and the recently discovered important
role played by microRNAs. Finally, we will see that misregulation of
translation also plays a central role in a number of human
diseases.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Courier New" size="-1" color="#000080">Leah
Vardy</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New" size="-1" color="#000080">Orr-Weaver
Lab</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New" size="-1" color="#000080">Whitehead
Institute</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New" size="-1" color="#000080">Nine Cambridge
Center, Room 539</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New" size="-1" color="#000080">Cambridge, MA
02142</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New" size="-1"
color="#000080">USA</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New" size="-1" color="#000080">Tel:
001-617-258-5246</font></div>
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