Agne Jakubauskaite ’13 has come full circle in the course of her undergraduate research of the newly discovered gene TBhR. Jakubauskaite, a biology concentrator, spent the summer of 2011 learning the ins and outs of protein expression and synthesizing and has now passed on those skills to Jessica Li ’14, a biology concentrator and Olusegun Ogunwomoju ’15. 

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The formation of a synapse, the junction between nerve cells, is one of the most the most important and critical stages of nervous system development, and in many cases improper synapse formation is the underlying cause of neurological disease.  The Lehman Lab has discovered a new gene that appears to encode an enzyme that is expressed as synapses develop in invertebrate and vertebrate nervous systems. This summer four students are working to synthesize four different enzymes to explore the function of this novel gene product.

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Professor of Biology Herm Lehman gave an invited lecture titled “Monooxygenases: from neurotransmitter synthesis to neurogenesis” to members of the Neuroscience, Metabolism and Aging, and HTS Lead Identification Departments at the Scripps Institute, Jupiter, Fla., on April 20.

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Professor of Biology Herm Lehman presented his paper "The Cellular and Molecular Biology of Octopaminergic Neurons" at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in Salt Lake City on Jan 6.

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On the surface, humans and flies may seem to have very different embryonic development; while it takes nine months for one human baby to develop, hundreds of fly eggs can hatch in the incubation period of only 24 hours. But, in both species, the undifferentiated embryo separates at some point to become different segments and appendages to the body. The molecules that trigger these differentiating genes are called morphogens, and each species has hundreds to thousands of them in its genome. William Stateman ’10 is trying to identify the effects of one specific morphogen on embryos of fruit flies. More ...

In the brain of every insect embryo, budding neurons grow and develop, in the same way as in the human brain. The protein tyramene beta hydroxelase (TBh) has been found in the budding neurons in insect embryos, as well as its relative TBhR (R is for “related”). Sumithra Nair ’12, working with Professor of Biology Herman Lehman, will try to shed some light on this common, essential yet enigmatic protein. More ...