Special Events
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Dr. Schleif's lecture abstract: Usually the “control” blocks of DNA that allow cells to turn on and turn off the flow of information from a particular gene are located immediately adjacent to the gene. It was a shock three decades ago to discover that occasionally the control blocks are split and while part lies adjacent to the relevant gene, another part may lie a great distance away. No mechanism was then known that could allow suitable communication between the two parts. The talk will describe the discovery of split control blocks, experiments that led to an understanding that proteins bound to split elements could communicate by binding to each other (thereby looping the DNA), and why split elements (DNA looping) is a good idea biologically.