User talk:Kam D. Dahlquist

I was wondering how you became so interested in Bioinformatics? Zeb Russo 18:04, 31 August 2011 (EDT)

When I first started grad school, I was interested in signaling pathways. However, back in 1993, all people could do was to clone and sequence a single gene and study it, so there wasn't any way to actually study the pathway at a systems level. When I got my degree in 2000 and was looking for a postdoc, DNA microarrays became available and we could study whole genomes. So, I became involved in bioinformatics so that I could learn about how pathways in the cell worked at a whole system level. — Kam D. Dahlquist 18:17, 31 August 2011 (EDT)

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Hey Dr. Dahlquist, I was wondering if there was ever a career you wanted to pursue outside of science? *Nicolette S. Harmon 18:26, 31 August 2011 (EDT):

Lately I've been thinking that if I had to choose a different career, I would be interested in journalism or public policy, especially since journalism seems to be devolving into "infotainment" these days. — Kam D. Dahlquist 18:43, 31 August 2011 (EDT)

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What are some accomplishments you have achieved so far (career related or not) that you are particularly proud of and what is something that you hope to achieve within the next 10 years? - Isaiah M. Castaneda 18:59, 31 August 2011 (EDT)

One of the things I am really proud of is the GenMAPP software that I helped develop when I was a postdoc. It has been used by thousands of people world-wide. We are going to use it in the third project in the course. Within the next 10 years, I will be going up for promotion to full professor. I want to integrate the current biomathematical modeling and bioinformatics software projects I am working on to create a user-friendly simulation tool for students to investigate gene regulatory pathways and networks. — Kam D. Dahlquist 19:41, 31 August 2011 (EDT)

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What was your favorite part of your undergraduate years? Samantha M. Hurndon 19:13, 31 August 2011 (EDT)

I think my favorite experience when I was an undergraduate was studying abroad at Oxford University in England. I joined a bunch of clubs and had a great time traveling around the country. Two of my favorite classes were "Gender and Science", taught by a woman physics professor, and "Understanding the Earth: Feminist Perspectives", taugth by a woman geology professor. — Kam D. Dahlquist 19:44, 31 August 2011 (EDT)

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Hey Dr. Dahlquist, I was wondering what recent scientific advancement are you most excited about for the future? Chris H. Rhodes 14:13, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

I've been excited ever since the Human Genome Project was completed in 2000-2003. That project enabled a whole suite of technologies (like DNA microarrays) that allow us to do high-throughput experiments and study cells at a systems level. I'm very excited about the advancements in using this data to model a cell's activities. I'm also excited for the prospect that soon it will be cheap enough to sequence individual genomes on a regular basis. However, I think our ability to capture more and more data is outpacing our ability to understand it. However, like I said in class, it's a really good time to be a biologist! — Kam D. Dahlquist 11:31, 7 September 2011 (EDT)

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Week 2 Journal Question

• Hey Dr. Dahlquist, I had a quick question about the week 2 journal. Would it be alright if I incorporated the answers to the handout questions into my conclusion instead of sticking them in the results section? It seemed to me like a more natural way of presenting the information and I'm kind of having trouble with thinking what else would go into the conclusion. I already made the changes to the page if you wanted to look at it and see if it seems right.Chris_Rhodes_Week_2 Thanks. Chris H. Rhodes 19:44, 11 September 2011 (EDT)

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Dr. Dahlquist, I was wondering what part of bioninformatics you like working with the most? Alex A. Cardenas

My favorite part of bioinformatics is really called "systems biology"; it involves studying the pathways and networks in the cell. My favorite thing is to take DNA microarray data and use it to understand the gene regulatory networks in the cell. I am involved in a modeling project that is trying to express the network interactions with differential equations. — Kam D. Dahlquist 14:25, 14 September 2011 (EDT)

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Hi Dr. Dahlquist, what was your favorite part of your graduate work? Robert W Arnold 23:13, 20 September 2011 (EDT)

Hmmm. I've never been asked that before. I think my favorite part of my graduate work came out of my biggest frustration. I was trying to reproduce the results in this Science paper, and I wasn't able to. Upon looking closer at the gel in the paper, I realized that they had done the proper controls and that if you accounted for that, my results were indeed similar to theirs. From that, I made a hypothesis about the role of Initiation Factor 1 binding to the A site of the small subunit of the ribosome to provide kind of a "proofreading" function during translation initiation. Coming up with that hypothesis was very satisfying after being frustrated for a long time.

— Kam D. Dahlquist 18:49, 21 September 2011 (EDT)