Modeling segmental patterning in the Drosophila embryo.

The main subject of my talk will be the proposal of a mathematical model for the establishment of the segmentation genes expression pattern along the anteroposterior axis of the Drosophila early embryo. This model is based on experimental evidence and describes with differential equations the regulatory interactions of the main genes, without recurring to pre-defined activation thresholds. Besides reproducing the wild-type patterns, we go further than the previous models in predicting the expression patterns resulting from mRNA ectopic expression and from loss-of-function mutations, as well as the effects of variations in the egg size, in the kinetic constants and in the maternal mRNA doses. We show that the initial positioning of the maternal mRNA and the genetic regulatory network structure are enough to explain the segmented expression pattern. I will also talk briefly about previous work with other models and about my post-doc project at the IGC.

3rd Annual Meeting - Programa de Doutoramento do Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia (PDIGC)

Components of V(D)J Recombination - A Bioinformatics approach.

V(D)J Recombination, an important process in the generation of the immune repertoire in many vertebrates, depends on the recognition of degenerate signal sequences flanking gene segments. Our goal is to understand the properties of these sequences that make them recognizable by the recombination enzymes, and possibly develop new methods to identify them.