Dr. Annika Barber, Ph.D.
Keynote Speaker
Assistant Professor, Waksman Institute and Dept. of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Time flies: Biological timekeeping in a 24 hour world
Organisms keep track of time on many scales – and one of the most conserved timescales across species is circadian time, i.e. 24 hour time. Life evolved in a 24 hour world, and circadian timekeeping allows anticipation of daily environmental changes, and temporal coordination of physiological function. How do organisms actually keep track of circadian time? Is it a clock? A timer? What if you live underground, or in space? What if you’re a bacteria without a brain? Much of what we know about the molecular and neurogenetics of circadian timekeeping comes from studies conducted in fruit flies. Dr. Annika Barber will introduce us to the wonderful world of fly behavioral genetics to understand how genes regulate behavior, how life tells time, and how modern human lifestyles break the clock.
Abstract written by Dr. Annika Barber, Ph.D.
