8:30 AM-9:30 AM
Room: Ballrooms I, II & III
Chair: Harry Swinney, University of Texas, Austin
DNA is at the same time the support of genetic information and a polymer. The speaker will describe experiments studying those two aspects.
Single stranded DNA can form secondary structures by self hybridization, defining a hairpin-loop. The dynamics of opening and closing of the structure and the elasticity of the loop depends on the information inscribed.
The speaker will discuss molecular recognition by annealing the hairpin to a complementary structure, and the optimal sensitivity can be achieved by varying the length and the composition of the stem. He will present a study of microarrays of such hairpin-loops to measure gene expression, and describe protein evolution in the laboratory using ribosome display and a cycle of mutation followed by selection.
Albert J. Libchaber
Center for Studies in Physics and Biology
Rockefeller University
MMD, 2/9/99