The Department of Biosciences organizes a seminar with lectures from our recently hired associate professors and professor:
- Adriana Lopes dos Santos
- Mark Ravinet
- Eivind Valen
Coffee and buns are served from 1:30 p.m. The first lecture starts at 2 p.m.
Lecture titles and abstracts
Marine protister på 1-2-3
Associate Professor, Adriana Lopes dos Santos (Section for Aquatic Biology and Toxicology, AQUA)
Molecular methods have completely transformed the study of marine microbes. After centuries of relative neglect, molecular data has revealed the surprising extent of diversity among microbial eukaryotes, also called protists. But major gaps in our understanding remain, especially how protist communities can impact and are linked to global processes. During this talk I will give you an overview of the two major axis of my work: the molecular taxonomy of microbial eukaryotes and their diversity in global ocean processes.
Studying ecology and evolution in a changing world
Associate Professor, Mark Ravinet (Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, CEES)
Human activity has altered the evolutionary trajectories and ecological circumstances of nearly every species on Earth. What can this tell us about the processes of adaptation and speciation? Can we take advantage of the human impacts on species as means to study evolution and its intersection with ecology? This is the driving aim of my research group, where we use Passer sparrows as a model system. We are focusing on a number of topics including understanding the evolutionary causes and consequences of human-commensalism, repeated adaptation to environmental cahnges in introduced populations and convergent adaptation to human environments across all bird species. We do this using a multidisciplinary approach including genomics, phylogenetics and ecological analyses. I will use this opportunity to introduce these projects and some new ones I am hoping begin at UiO.
RNA decoding and DNA eroding
Professor, Eivind Valen (Section for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, BMB)
Our group works at the intersect of computational ane molecular biology. We study RNA biology and translation and develop methods for genome editing. I will give a short overview over some of the activities in my group and what we hope to start up at IBV.