Integrated Calendar

The talk will start with a basic introduction aimed at the non-expert.

In response to external stimuli, cells adjust their behavior to a changing environment – for example, they start to divide or migrate. In order to perform these actions, the protein content of the cell must change. To accomplish this, a cell must modify the levels at which the genes that code for these proteins are transcribed. These transcriptional responses to extracellular stimuli are regulated by tuning the rates of transcript production and degradation. I present here the results of a study aimed at deducing the dynamics of these two processes from measurements of the transcriptome, and to elucidate the operational strategy behind this dynamics.

By combining a simple theoretical model of transcription with simultaneous measurements of time-dependent precursor mRNA and mature mRNA abundances, we were able to infer unexpected complex stimulation-induced time-dependent transcript production and degradation. In particular, we found that production of many transcripts was characterized by a large dynamic range, which allowed these genes to exhibit an unexpectedly strong transient “production overshoot”, thereby accelerating their induction.

The neural mechanisms underlying consciousness have been one of the most intriguing yet elusive questions facing science. We will discuss how the activity of the neuronal population changes during loss of consciousness following administration of general anesthesia drugs.
We measured the changes of Sub-thalamic nucleus neurons activity during administration of propofol (GABAA agonists) and Remifentanil (opiate agonist). This was done during implantation of deep brain stimulation electrodes for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease in humans. Administration of both Propofol and remifentanil leads to a similar reduction of STN multi-unit neuronal spiking activity. Remifentanil seems to interfere with the oscillatory pattern of STN activity whereas propofol does not.
In order to broaden our understanding of the effect of anesthetic drugs, we performed extra-cellular recordings of neuronal activity from the cortex and globus pallidus of vervet monkeys using multiple electrodes. The recordings were performed during sedation with Ketamine (NMDA antagonist). Our results demonstrate the appearance of synchronous oscillatory activity of the LFP at slow (

The top quark is the most massive, point-like, particle known to exist in
nature. It plays a major role both in the experimental and theoretical
frontiers. Experimentally, observation of top quark is challenging, its
signature is similar to that expected from new physics (NP) dynamics. The
recent top rediscovery, at the LHC, is marking the beginning of the hunt for
the unknown. Theoretically, top physics is possibly linked to electroweak
symmetry breaking and likely to be part of the solution to the fine-tuning
problem. We discuss theoretical aspects related to top jets, a new type of
objects, which might be crucial for NP discovery. We also present our recent
experimental results from the CDF, Tevatron experiment, regarding the first
observation of ultra massive jets.