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SUMMARY:Fun experiments you can only do with frogs - Professor Rebecca Hea
 ld\, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology\, University of Californ
 ia\, Berkeley
DTSTART:20260430T130000Z
DTEND:20260430T140000Z
UID:TALK231145@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Caroline Newnham
DESCRIPTION:My laboratory investigates fundamental questions of cell divis
 ion and size control during vertebrate development. We leverage frogs of t
 he genus Xenopus that span in genome size from diploid (2N\, Xenopus tropi
 calis) to dodecaploid (12N\, Xenopus longipes) to investigate consequences
  of the conserved relationship between genome size and cell size on embryo
 genesis and explore the molecular basis and physiological consequences of 
 scaling relationships. A unique feature of Xenopus systems is the ability 
 to reconstitute assembly of the meiotic or mitotic spindle in vitro using 
 cytoplasmic extracts. By combining cell biological\, biochemical\, and bio
 informatic approaches in embryos and extract systems\, we are currently in
 vestigating mechanisms of oocyte growth\, the incidence of aneuploidy duri
 ng embryogenesis\, adaptation of the cell division machinery to increased 
 ploidy\, chromosome mis-segregation in inviable hybrids\, and the cellular
  basis of metabolic scaling. Our studies aim to reveal fundamental princip
 les of spindle assembly and biological size control\, and the molecular ba
 sis of variation that contributes to genomic instability and evolution.
LOCATION:Biffen Lecture theatre and Zoom
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