This thesis contributes to a statistical modeling framework for protein sequence and structure evolution. An existing Bayesian model for protein structure evolution is extended in two unique ways. Each of these model extensions ...

Contests are essential parts of an animal’s life history, as they dictate access to critical resources like mates, food, or territory. Studying how animals efficiently assess competitive ability to resolve contests is a ...

Cleaner shrimp are small, brightly-colored tropical crustaceans that attract reef fish clients to set locations on a reef called cleaning stations and then "clean" them by removing ectoparasites from their scales, gills, ...

Luminal breast cancer is among the most prevalent diseases in women in the United States and worldwide. Historically, luminal cancers have been effectively managed with treatments that alter the availability of estrogens ...

Cancer is a major threat to human health and results in 1 in 6 deaths globally. Despite an extraordinary amount of effort and money spent, eradication or control of advanced disease has not yet been achieved. Understanding ...

The Rho GTPase Cdc42 is a master regulator of cell polarity that orchestrates reorganization of the cytoskeleton. During polarity establishment, active GTP-Cdc42 accumulates at a part of the cell cortex that becomes the ...

Cancer-specific cytopathogenicity of oncolytic viruses is often defined by viralsensitivity to innate antiviral immune responses, e.g. type I Interferons (IFNs), limitingcytotoxicity to cells lacking these responses. However, ...

Until recently, understanding of the evolutionary and molecular basis of many uniquely human traits has largely been hampered by the limited ability to perform experiments on, and access to samples from non-human primates. ...

This dissertation combines live imaging, embryological manipulations and computational analysis to understand the development of pigmented immunocytes in the sea urchin. Three areas received special attention: the mechanism ...

Microbial communities associated with animals and plants (i.e., microbiomes) are implicated in the day-to-day functioning of their hosts, and there has been an explosion of research on them. Much of this research has focused ...