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Julius Judd, a fourth-year doctoral student in the graduate field of molecular biology and genetics, has been selected for the 2021 Harry and Samuel Mann Outstanding Graduate Student Award. ....
February 19, 2021 In the same way that Lego pieces can be arranged in new ways to build a variety of structures, genetic elements can be mixed and matched to create new genes, according to new research. A long-proposed mechanism for creating genes, called exon shuffling, works by shuffling functional blocks of DNA sequences into new genes that express proteins. A study, “Recurrent Evolution of Vertebrate Transcription Factors by Transposase Capture,” published Feb. 19 in Science, investigates how genetic elements called transposons, or “jumping genes,” are added into the mix during evolution to assemble new genes through exon shuffling. Transposons, first discovered in the 1940s by Cornell alum and Nobel Prize-winner Barbara McClintock ’23, M.A. ’25, Ph.D. ’27, are abundant components of genomes – they make up half of human DNA – and have the ability to hop and replicate selfishly in the genome. Some transposons contain their own genes that code f ....
January 20, 2021 Biologists have long wondered how complex organisms contain a variety of dramatically different types of cells with specialized functions, even though all of those cells are genetically identical. New research reveals how proteins, called “pioneer transcription factors,” help turn on key genes that give cell types their unique properties and functions. These pioneer factors, it turns out, help unspool tightly wound coils of DNA so that genetic blueprints in genes can be read and proteins that play roles in biological processes can be made. “We know pretty well what pioneer factors are and what they do, but what we don’t know is how they work exactly,” said first author Julius Judd, a graduate student in the lab of senior author John Lis, professor of molecular biology and genetics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. ....