Speaker: Ben Neely, NIST
Topic: Sea lions and bats and humans, oh my! How to explore mammalian serum proteomes
Date: Monday, April 20th, 2020
NEW TIME: 1:00 pm Presentation
Location: Webinar – see email on April 16 for invite link. Join the mailing list
Abstract: Comparative biology and biomimicry are broadly focused on understanding the underlying molecular basis of phenotypes relevant to chronic human ailments. Notably, research in hibernating mammals is improving our understanding of neurodegeneration, studies of diving mammals is identifying novel mechanisms of ischemia/reperfusion injury resistance, while studying organisms that follow Peto’s paradox is advancing longevity and cancer research. In addition to biomimetics, recent events are highlighting certain mammal’s ability to serve as reservoirs of infectious disease. Systematically characterizing the diversity of all mammalian proteomes will enable unexpected discoveries, but this presents numerous technological hurdles. In this seminar I will present results, recommendations and solutions to the issues of working in species without genomes or annotations, acquiring proteomic data in a standardized fashion, comparing proteomes between species and identifying molecular trends across clades with relevant phenotypes. Using the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin and California sea lion as examples, I will demonstrate improvements in proteomic analysis using genomic sequencing and gene annotation techniques, as well as emerging proteomic techniques such as data-independent acquisition applied to undepleted human and bat serum.