The Center for Institutional Research Computing’s September seminar will be given by Dr. Joanna Kelley.

The talk will be held in SPARK 227, coffee and light refreshments will be served.

Big Data and Evolutionary Genomics: Gene Regulation in Hibernating Grizzly Bears

Many bears undergo annual cycles that include extreme obesity, weight loss, insulin sensitivity and resistance, and greatly reduced or no weight bearing activity. Yet, they show no lasting ill effects. Worldwide, humans suffer from obesity, type 2 diabetes, and disuse atrophy, but effective treatments are limited. Therefore, knowledge gained by understanding the unique physiology of bears could lead to novel insight applicable to human disease. Using RNA-sequencing as an unbiased approach to identify the scope and specificity of transcriptional changes occurring annually in adipose, liver, and muscle of the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) we found that hibernation was characterized by extensive and complex changes in gene expression in all tissues. This talk will present recent work analyzing seasonal changes in gene expression in brown bears.