מנגנונים מולקולריים ומעבר סיגנל של החושים הכימיים

קבוצת הלימוד הבין-תחומית "מנגנונים מולקולריים ומעבר סיגנל של חישה כימו-סנסורית" תכלול תלמידים לתואר שלישי אשר ידונו בהיבטים שונים של חישה כימו-סנסורית ברמה מולקולרית ומעבר הסיגנל בהיבט רב-תחומי, שייאגד בתוכו שיטות in-vivo, in-vitro ו- in-silico. הקבוצה תעסוק ביישום שיטות וסטנדרטיזציה של פרוטוקולים ניסויים בחקר מנגנונים מולקולריים של העברת סיגנל והפעלה של מערכות ריח וטעם, כאשר המטרה היא לכסות את תחום החישה בצורה מקיפה מהשפעת הגירוי והסביבה, העברת הסיגנל ועיבודו.

            תכנית העבודה השנתית תתמקד במגוון נושאים, כאשר כל מפגש יתמקד בתחום אחר בנושא לפי מומחיותם של חברי הקבוצה. בין הנושאים המתוכננים: ניסויי טעם סנסוריים בבעלי חיים שונים, ניסויים בתאים שמבטאים קולטני טעם או תעלות, שיטות מדידה לפעילות תאית, מידול מבנה של קולטנים, חיזוי קישור ליגנדים ,השפעת מוטציות על מבנה ופעילות והיבטים פסיכולוגיים וקוגנטיביים אשר משפיעים על מעבר הסיגנל ועוצמתו. בנוסף נקרא ונבקר מאמרים בתחום כפי שמפורט בהמשך. חלק גדול מהנעשה בתחום נלמד כתוכן לימודי-אקדמי בפקולטות השונות וכך נוכל ליישר קו מבחינה לימודית ומקצועית בקורסים שאותם אנחנו מעבירים.

קבוצת המחקר מכילה כמות התחלתית של אנשים שנמצאים כבר כעת בקשרים אקדמאיים של שיתוף ידע במסגרת המחקרים של קבוצות שונות. חיזוק הקשרים הקיימים ומיסודם למסגרת מאורגנת, מתוקצבת וקבועה יאפשר להגדיל את שיתוף הפעולה ולצרף חברים נוספים בהמשך.

The interdisciplinary study group “Molecular mechanism and signal transductions of
chemo-sensation” will include Ph.D students that will discuss different aspect of
chemo-sensation from the molecular level through signal sensation to processing, in
multiple points-of-view consisting of in-silico, in-vitro and in-vivo approaches. The
main aims are to share and standardize experimental protocols and procedures, and
to cover as many approaches as possible, including environmental, social and
psychological effects.
The annual work plan will focus on several topics – each meeting on a different
subject according to the expertise of the members. Topics will include, among other

topics, sensory taste panels and experiments on humans and animals, in-vitro cell-
based experiments, activation metric methods, mutagenesis of taste receptors, in-
silico structural modeling, social and psychological aspects of signal perception and

processing. We will also critically read interdisciplinary papers that will provide us
with new insights on our projects. Most of us are also teaching assistants in the
different faculties with respect to this party’s subject and this is an opportunity to
make sure that the teaching standards are similar across all the university.
In addition, this platform will provide practical grounds for future collaboration among
the groups in different faculties.

 

Labs working on sensory in the Hebrew university

Summary of meeting 08/02/18

The meeting focused on introduction and personal acquaintance, every member presented their research and methods used in their lab we discussed the similar and different aspects of smell and taste research. We then discussed the pros and cons for different research methods - In-vitro, In-vivo and In-silico. We also discussed the use of High-throughput structure based docking and ligand based screening and compared In-vitro methods used in the different labs such as calcium assays, Oocytes transfomations and expression of mRNA and sensory experiments with a sensory taste panel.

We also had the opportunity to discuss the different databases we use to search chemical properties and purchasable compounds:

http://zinc15.docking.org/

http://www.hmdb.ca/

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

http://www.genome.jp/kegg/

If anyone wants to present or practice a poster or presentation let me know - its' a good opportunity to practice.

. The next meeting will take place in the same place - Fritz Haber building in Givat Ram , 10 am, on the 22/02/18

Yaron.

Yaronbsg@gmail.com

Summary of meeting 22/2/18

We started with an introduction of new members of the Chevruta, and moved on to a nice explanation on molecular recognition and biological pathway by Amir (Excellent review papers are availible to download from this post, thank you Amir!). We discussed computational tools to do sequence alignment:

https://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/msa/clustalo/

 

We then discussed RNA folding servers and their uses:

http://rna.tbi.univie.ac.at/cgi-bin/RNAWebSuite/RNAfold.cgi

http://rna.tbi.univie.ac.at/

 

 We went on to discuss the our understanding of human smell and recent papers discussing the effects of smell on human biochemistry and nuerobiology:

Noam sobel's group - tears as a chemosignal

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6014/226.figures-only

Noam sobel's group - altered responses to social chemosignals in autism spectrum disorder

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-017-0024-x

 

We also talked about taste and smell in linguistics, Bar gave us a basic lesson in understanding and researching lignuistiscs with several examples of papers and research interests:

http://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/15699994;jsessionid=8dq2us9sl4lmd.x-jbep-live-01

 

We then discussed the intersting overlap between biology and liguistics in defining the pleasentess of smell.

We ended with a discussion about smell in its theological meaning, and our understanding of religious blessings in relation to biology and linguistics.

https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%94%D7%A...

 

Thank you for joining this exciting discussion, it was very interesting and fun.

The next week will take place a week before the semseter passover break, I will update this page and by email to notify the exact date.

 

Summary of meeting 29/3

In this meetings we discussed on upcoming confrences that may be of interest to the group:

Jerusalem Brain Community (JBC) retreat - https://scholars.huji.ac.il/jbc/event/save-date-jbcs-5th-annual-retreat-...

Medicinal Chemical Section - Israeli Chemistry Society (MCS-ICS) - http://www.mcs-ics.org.il/index.asp?catID=89483&siteLang=2

European Chemoreception Research Organization (ECRO) - https://www.ecro.online/meetings/annual-meeting-2018/

We then discussed how to prepare to confrences and the ability to use the group to practice oral talks or poster presetations. We will soon upload poster templates so everyone would be able to use.

A special guest was Antonella Di Pizio - an expert post-doc in the field of sensory. we discussed time management in the PhD and how to handle stress during the research.

The next meeting will be on April 12th on Jerusalem.

 

Summary of meeting 25/04/18

The meeting starteed with greetings and we talked about passover and out vacation. A new attendee preseted hereself.

Yaron presented his research and there was a discussion on the presentation and the research.

Following the previous meeting Amir presented a poster and we highlighted the good and the bad of is poster and how can we make a good poster for confrences.

In the next meeting David or Amir will present their work and additional posters will be presented.