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April 23, 2012
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Date:17ThursdayMay 2012Lecture
Neuronal Avalanches in the Resting MEG of the Human Brain
More information Time 12:30 - 12:30Location Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture HallLecturer Dr. Oren Shriki
National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MarylandOrganizer Department of Brain SciencesContact Abstract Show full text abstract about A major goal in systems neuroscience is to characterize norm...» A major goal in systems neuroscience is to characterize normal cortical dynamics. Numerous in vitro and in vivo studies demonstrated that ongoing cortical dynamics are characterized by cascades of activity across many spatial scales, termed neuronal avalanches. Avalanche dynamics are identified by¬ two measures (1) a power law in the size distribution of activity cascades, with an exponent of -3/2 and (2) a branching parameter of 1, which reflects a balance in the propagation of cortical activity at the border of premature termination and potential exponential blow up. Here we analyzed resting state brain activity recorded using MEG from more than 100 healthy human subjects. We identified discrete events in the MEG signal and segmented them into cascades, using multiple timescales. Cascade-size distributions were found to obey power laws. At the timescale where the branching parameter was close to the critical value of 1, the power law exponent was -3/2, in line with expectations for neuronal avalanches. This behavior was robust to scaling of the number of sensors and to coarse-graining the sensor resolution. As controls, phase-shuffled data with the same power spectrum or empty-scanner data did not exhibit neuronal avalanches. These results indicate that normal resting cortical dynamics are well described by a critical branching process. Both theory and experiments suggest that cortical networks with such critical, scale-free dynamics optimize various types of information processing. Neuronal avalanches could thus provide a biomarker for disorders in information processing, paving the way for novel quantification of normal and pathological cortical states. -
Date:17ThursdayMay 2012Lecture
"How DNA thermodynamics specify chromosome structure and function"
More information Time 14:00 - 15:00Location Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical ResearchLecturer Dr. Andrew Travers
MRC laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UKOrganizer Department of Molecular Cell Biology , Department of Chemical and Structural BiologyContact -
Date:17ThursdayMay 2012Lecture
"Evolution Teaches Protein Prediction"
More information Time 15:00 - 16:00Location Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman BuildingLecturer Prof. Burkhard Rost
Bioinformatics, Technische Universität München, GermanyOrganizer Department of Chemical and Structural BiologyContact -
Date:17ThursdayMay 2012Lecture
The Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science - graduation ceremony of 2012
More information Time 16:00 - 16:00Location Jacob Ziskind BuildingOrganizer Faculty of Mathematics and Computer ScienceHomepage Contact -
Date:20SundayMay 2012Lecture
Uplift and Exhumation across the High Himalaya in Mt. Everest area.
More information Time 11:00 - 11:00Location Sussman Family Building for Environmental SciencesLecturer Dr. Itai Haviv
Geological & Environmental Sciences Ben-Gurion UniversityOrganizer Department of Earth and Planetary SciencesContact -
Date:20SundayMay 2012Lecture
Physicists' view of auto- and para-crine signaling in T-cell communication
More information Time 13:00 - 13:00Location Edna and K.B. Weissman Building of Physical SciencesLecturer Prof. Oleg Krichevsky
Molecular Biophysics Lab, Ben-Gurion UniversityOrganizer Clore Center for Biological PhysicsContact Abstract Show full text abstract about Cells of the immune system secrete various small proteins &a...» Cells of the immune system secrete various small proteins – cytokines that can bind the receptors of the secreting cell itself (in an autocrine loop), or to other cells in the organ(paracrine signaling). The cytokine binding to the receptor causes a chain of signaling events that determine the fate of the receiving cell: its survival, differentiation and proliferation. Based on our measurements of interleukin-2 (IL-2) signaling, I will address two questions: 1) the efficiency of the autocrine loop, i.e. the probability of the cytokine molecule binding to the cell it has been secreted from, and, 2) the spatial extent of paracrine communication: how far from the secreting cell the cytokine field extends.
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Date:20SundayMay 2012Lecture
"Heat storage for solar thermal power plants"
More information Time 13:15 - 13:15Location Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture HallLecturer Prof. Abraham Kribus
School of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv UniversityOrganizer Faculty of ChemistryContact -
Date:20SundayMay 2012Lecture
Comparing Apples and Oranges: the search for a common subjective value representation in the brain
More information Time 14:30 - 14:30Location Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture HallLecturer Dr. Dino Levy
Center for Neural Science, New York University, NYOrganizer Department of Brain SciencesContact Abstract Show full text abstract about The ability of human subjects to choose between disparate ki...» The ability of human subjects to choose between disparate kinds of rewards suggests that the neural circuits for valuing different reward types must converge. Economic theory suggests that these convergence points represent the subjective values (SVs) of different reward types on a common scale for comparison. I will describe two studies related to this theory. First, to directly examine this theory and to map the neural circuits for reward valuation, we had food and water deprived subjects make risky choices for money, food and water both in and out of a brain scanner. In the second study we sought to determine whether the risk preferences of these same rewards change as a function of internal state.
We found that risk preferences across reward types were highly correlated. We also found that partially distinct neural networks represent the SV of monetary and food rewards and that these distinct networks showed specific convergence points. In addition, we show that subjects tend to converge to a similar, weakly risk-averse attitude when deprived.
These results may suggest that partially distinct valuation networks for different reward types converge on a unified valuation network, which enables a direct comparison between different reward types and hence guides valuation and choice. When healthy humans are sated they show heterogeneity of risk preferences, but when deprived a convergence point appears to emerge. It is as if evolution pressure, when resources are scarce, drives humans to a similar level of risk aversion but allows heterogeneity when resources are plentiful.
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Date:20SundayMay 2012Lecture
“Take a lame female hyena and boil it in oil: A look at classical Islamic medicine”
More information Time 16:15 - 16:15Location Dolfi and Lola Ebner AuditoriumLecturer LeighChipman
Hebrew and Bar-Ilan UniversityOrganizer Department of Physics of Complex SystemsContact Abstract Show full text abstract about During the Middle Ages (roughly 600-1500 CE), the physicians...» During the Middle Ages (roughly 600-1500 CE), the physicians of the Islamic world were renowned for their efficient prevention and treatment of illnesses. Authors like Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Rhazes (al-Razi) composed medical encyclopedias that were used in Latin translations in European medical schools down to the 18th century, and in their Arabic original, are still used in India in the present day. Moses Maimonides (the Rambam) rose to become head of the Jewish community of Egypt not only because of his halachic knowledge, but also due to his prestige as one of Saladin’s physicians.
This lecture will present a brief outline of major aspects of medical theory and practice in the pre-modern Islamic world. I will discuss the emergence of an Islamic medicine from its Greek, Persian and Arabian antecedents; developments in therapy, especially in pharmacy and surgery; medical training and medical ethics; the place of Jewish physicians and pharmacists within the medical marketplace; and alternatives to learned medicine.
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Date:21MondayMay 2012Lecture
Bioinformatics workshop: What can I learn from DNA binding regions (ChIP-Seq peaks) using web tools?
More information Time 09:30 - 12:00Location Harry Levine Family BuildingLecturer Dr. Dena Leshkowitz
Bioinformatics unit Weizmann Institute of ScienceContact Abstract Show full text abstract about In this workshop we will learn how extract biological knowle...» In this workshop we will learn how extract biological knowledge from a list of genomic regions which represent the DNA binding site of proteins.
The regions are termed peaks and are usually a result of a ChIP-Seq experiment which combines chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) with massively parallel DNA sequencing to identify binding sites of DNA-associated proteins.
In the workshop we will learn how to search for relevant public peak data and how to analyze the data in order to associate it with genes, find biological enrichments and motif enrichments.
The tools we will use are web based and include:
GREAT (http://great.stanford.edu/public/html/splash.php) ,
Cistrome (http://cistrome.org/), Genomatix (commercial - http://www.genomatix.de/applications/ChIP-Seq.html)
and MEME-ChIP (http://meme.sdsc.edu/meme/doc/meme-chip.html)
Registration is required.
First you need to register to the BBCU activities here:
http://bip.weizmann.ac.il/activbin/events (click on the LogIn button)
and then you need to register to the workshop. (click on the Register button)
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Date:21MondayMay 2012Lecture
"Contemporary neuroimmunology: The immunology of the brain and the mind"
More information Time 11:00 - 13:00Location Wolfson Building for Biological ResearchLecturer Dr. Michal Schwartz
WISOrganizer Department of Systems ImmunologyContact -
Date:21MondayMay 2012Colloquia
Faculty of Chemistry Colloquium - Prof. Thomas Walz
More information Time 11:00 - 12:30Title USING TWO-DIMENSIONAL CRYSTALS OF AQUAPORIN-0 TO INVESTIGATE LIPID-PROTEIN INTEGRATIONSLocation Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture HallLecturer Professor Thomas Walz
Department of Cell Biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USAOrganizer Faculty of ChemistryContact Abstract Show full text abstract about Membrane proteins play crucial roles in many cellular proces...» Membrane proteins play crucial roles in many cellular processes such as signaling, nutrient uptake and cell adhesion. Although the lipid bilayer influences many aspects of membrane protein function, our understanding of lipid–protein interactions is limited. Aquaporin-0 (AQP0) is a water channel in the lens membrane, but it also assembles into orthogonal arrays that form membrane junctions between lens fiber cells. In vitro reconstitution of AQP0 with the lipid dimyristoyl phosphatidylcholine (DMPC) yielded large and well ordered double-layered two-dimensional (2D) crystals that allowed electron crystallographic structure determination of AQP0 and its surrounding DMPC bilayer at 1.9 Å resolution. Since AQP0 forms high-quality 2D crystals not only with DMPC but also with various other lipids, AQP0 2D crystals are an ideal model system to investigate lipid–protein interactions. By studying AQP0 2D crystals formed with different lipids, we can begin to address very basic questions in membrane biology, such as the driving forces that define lipid–protein interactions, the effects of hydrophobic mismatch, and the molecular basis of raft formation. -
Date:21MondayMay 2012Lecture
Hsp90 Inhibition in Cancer...Now the Fun Begins
More information Time 11:00 - 11:00Location Max and Lillian Candiotty BuildingLecturer Dr. Safi Bahcall
President and CEO Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp., Lexington, Ma., USAOrganizer Department of Immunology and Regenerative BiologyContact -
Date:21MondayMay 2012Lecture
Equilibrium States and Time Evolution of Systems with Long-Range Interactions
More information Time 14:15 - 14:15Location Dannie N. Heineman LaboratoryLecturer Joel L. Lebowitz
Rutgers UniversityOrganizer Department of Physics of Complex SystemsContact -
Date:21MondayMay 2012Lecture
On ramified covers of algebraic surfaces, and combinatorics of some infinite discrete groups.
More information Time 15:00 - 15:00Location Jacob Ziskind BuildingLecturer Maxim Leyenson
Organizer Faculty of Mathematics and Computer ScienceContact -
Date:21MondayMay 2012Lecture
מפגשים בחזית המדע
More information Time 19:15 - 21:00Location Davidson Institute of Science EducationOrganizer Science for All UnitHomepage Contact -
Date:21MondayMay 2012Cultural Events
Gil Shohat and Marina Maximilian Blumin
More information Time 20:30 - 20:30Title Dulce and YoaceLocation Michael Sela AuditoriumContact -
Date:22TuesdayMay 2012Lecture
" A bacterial chemotaxis-like signal transduction system leading to biofilms".
More information Time 10:00 - 10:00Location Wolfson Building for Biological ResearchLecturer Prof. Caroline Harwood
Department of Microbiology University of WashingtonOrganizer Department of Biomolecular SciencesContact -
Date:22TuesdayMay 2012Lecture
Differential analysis of the polarity transform
More information Time 11:00 - 11:00Location Jacob Ziskind BuildingLecturer Shiri Artstein
Tel Aviv UniversityOrganizer Faculty of Mathematics and Computer ScienceContact -
Date:22TuesdayMay 2012Lecture
"Py-Im Polyamides – from DNA Recognition to In Vivo Experiments"
More information Time 11:00 - 11:00Title Organic Chemistry - Departmental SeminarLocation Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman BuildingLecturer Dr. Evgenij Raskatov
California Institute of TechnologyOrganizer Department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials ScienceContact Abstract Show full text abstract about Abstract: Py-Im polyamides are modular DNA minor groove bin...» Abstract:
Py-Im polyamides are modular DNA minor groove binding molecules with affinities and specificities comparable to those of DNA binding proteins.
Molecules can be constructed to recognize the four letters of the genetic code.
Recent efforts established that Py-Im polyamides can be employed in cell culture to affect NF-kB dependent gene expression. We further identified that molecules are potent in live animals. Depending on molecular architecture the compounds remain in the mouse circulatory system for up to multiple days, can access subcutaneous tumor xenografts and lead to gene expression changes in vivo.