• HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Saturday, August 20, 2022
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News

Biology’s ‘breadboard’

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
December 26, 2016
in Science News
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram
IMAGE

Credit: Navin Pokala

The human brain, the most complex object in the universe, has 86 billion neurons with trillions of yet-unmapped connections. Understanding how it generates behavior is a problem that has beguiled humankind for millennia, and is critical for developing effective therapies for the psychiatric disorders that incur heavy costs on individuals and on society. The roundworm C elegans, measuring a mere 1 millimeter, is a powerful model system for understanding how nervous systems produce behaviors. Unlike the human brain, it has only 302 neurons, and has completely mapped neural wiring of 6,000 connections, making it the closest thing to a computer circuit board in biology. Despite its relative simplicity, the roundworm exhibits behaviors ranging from simple reflexes to the more complex, such as searching for food when hungry, learning to avoid food that previously made it ill, and social behavior.

Understanding how this dramatically simpler nervous system works will give insights into how our vastly more complex brains function and is the subject of a paper published on December 26, 2016, in Nature Methods.

Specifically, in electrical and computer engineering, circuits are designed and studied using breadboards that allow circuit elements to be easily added, removed, and modified. Likewise, in order to understand how the neural circuits in brains generate behavior, scientists need to manipulate the activity of individual neurons, turning them on and off at will. To do this, researchers have developed robust tools (transgenic actuators), that use drugs or light to activate or silence the neurons in which they are expressed. At present, these cell-specific systems need to be custom-made for each neuron and actuator combination a researcher may be interested in.

Navin Pokala, Ph.D., assistant professor of Life Sciences at New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) College of Arts and Sciences, with researchers at Caltech, adapted the GAL4-UAS system for expressing transgenes in the nematode C elegans. This system, which uses a gene regulatory protein from yeast, greatly reduces the work required for making cell-specific perturbations. Instead of constructing new DNA and transgenic animals for each cell and actuator, new cell-actuator combinations can be generated by simply mating already-constructed animals, dramatically reducing the time and cost.

Pokala and his collaborators plan on exploring variations to the GAL4-UAS system that allow more precise control of actuator gene expression than is currently possible. The newfound ease of transgenic animal construction allows for systematic perturbation of the cells in the nervous system, allowing Pokala and colleagues to build a database linking neural perturbations to behaviors. When combined with the previously mapped circuit wiring, this database will be a valuable resource for developing and testing models of nervous system function.

###

The work is described in Nature Methods was funded by The Howard Hughes Medical Institute and The G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation.

Navin Pokala can be reached at [email protected]; (516) 686-7771. navinpokala.org

About NYIT

New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) offers 90 degree programs, including undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees, in more than 50 fields of study, including architecture and design; arts and sciences; education; engineering and computing sciences; health professions; management; and osteopathic medicine. A non-profit independent, private institution of higher education, NYIT has 12,000 students attending campuses on Long Island and Manhattan, online, and at its global campuses.

Led by President Edward Guiliano, NYIT is guided by its mission to provide career-oriented professional education, offer access to opportunity to all qualified students, and support applications-oriented research that benefits the larger world. To date, 100,000 graduates have received degrees from NYIT. For more information, visit nyit.edu.

Media Contact

Navin Pokala
[email protected]
516-686-7771
@nyit

http://www.nyit.edu

############

Story Source: Materials provided by Scienmag

Share13Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

How to regenerate mouse hearts

Harnessing the heart regeneration ability of marsupials

August 20, 2022
UTSW Clinical trial sets stage for new paradigm in kidney cancer treatment

UTSW Clinical trial sets stage for new paradigm in kidney cancer treatment

August 19, 2022

Study: New model for predicting belief change

August 19, 2022

Rice, NASA extend Space Act Agreement

August 19, 2022
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Picture of the horse specimen.

    Ancient DNA clarifies the early history of American colonial horses

    57 shares
    Share 23 Tweet 14
  • Fatigue, headache among top lingering symptoms months after COVID

    40 shares
    Share 16 Tweet 10
  • Chi-Huey Wong awarded Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Synthesis

    38 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 10
  • Dogs lying in the middle of the road after sunrise at Kewa Pueblo, in no hurry to start the day

    35 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Tags

WeaponryVaccinesUrbanizationUniversity of WashingtonZoology/Veterinary ScienceVehiclesViolence/CriminalsWeather/StormsVirologyVirusVaccineUrogenital System

Recent Posts

  • Harnessing the heart regeneration ability of marsupials
  • UTSW Clinical trial sets stage for new paradigm in kidney cancer treatment
  • Study: New model for predicting belief change
  • Rice, NASA extend Space Act Agreement
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In