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Non-Enzymatic Copying of Nucleic Acid Templates
(2014-02-25)
All known living cells contain a complex set of molecular machinery to support their growth and replication. However, the earliest cells must have been much simpler, consisting of a compartment and a genetic material to ...
Central role for Sonic hedgehog-triggered pericytes in hindbrain choroid plexus development
(2014-02-25)
The choroid plexus is an organ within each brain ventricle comprised of elaborate folds of epithelium (CPe) and vasculature. It performs numerous functions essential for brain development and health, including secretion ...
Tracing human cancer evolution with hypermutable DNA
(2014-02-25)
Metastasis is the main cause of cancer morbidity and mortality. Despite its clinical significance, several fundamental questions about the metastatic process in humans remain unsolved. Does metastasis occur early or late ...
Characterization of the Antibacterial Activity of the Type VI Secretion System
(2014-02-25)
This dissertation summarizes advances made toward understanding of the composition, structure, mechanism, and regulation of the bacterial type VI secretion system (T6SS). The T6SS is a widely conserved bacterial nanomachine ...
Applying Next Generation Sequencing to Skeletal Development and Disease
(2014-02-25)
Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies have dramatically increased the throughput and lowered the cost of DNA sequencing. In this thesis, I apply these technologies to unresolved questions in skeletal development ...
Optimizing rare variant association studies in theory and practice
(2014-06-06)
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have greatly improved our understanding of the genetic basis of complex traits. However, there are two major limitations with GWAS. First, most common variants identified by GWAS ...
Characterization of lung tumor-propagating cells reveals a role for CD24 and Yap/Taz in lung cancer progression and metastasis
(2014-06-06)
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. A large part of this high mortality rate is due to the onset of metastatic disease prior to diagnosis. Advances in treatment for metastatic disease may be achieved ...
The Evolutionary Feedback between Genetic Conflict and Genome Architecture
(2014-06-06)
The advent of separate sexes set the stage for dramatic evolutionary innovation across a wide range of taxa. Much of this innovation is attributable to divergent evolutionary interests between now distinct sub-populations ...
Genome Engineering Technology and Its Application in Mammalian Cells
(2014-06-06)
The advancement of high-throughput, large-scale biochemical, biophysical, and genetic technologies has enabled the generation of massive amounts of biological data and allowed us to synthesize various types of biomaterial ...
Leveraging genetic association data to investigate the polygenic architecture of human traits and diseases
(2014-06-06)
Many human traits and diseases have a polygenic architecture, where phenotype is partially determined by variation in many genes. These complex traits or diseases can be highly heritable and genome-wide association studies ...