My dissertation is now available for download from ProQuest

My PhD dissertation is now available for free online at http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/pubnum/10164019.html

I'm also making my laboratory notebooks from grad school available. They don't cover everything I did, they're pretty messy, and I'm not sure they will be useful or interesting to anyone, but here they are.
book1
book2
book3


Here is the abstract to my dissertation:
Plant natural products are useful for many different applications, including medicines, flavors and fragrances, and industrial uses. Two important aspects of plant natural products research are the identification of compounds in their source plants, and the characterization of the processes involved in their biosynthesis. To aid in the identification of plant natural products, we developed the Spektraris family of databases. These databases include highperformance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry data, and ¹³C and ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance data, which are searchable through an online interface. The utility of Spektraris was validated by using it to identify compounds in plant extracts and as part of a workflow to elucidate the structure of a previously undescribed compound.
Mints have a long history of use as model systems for studying the processes of terpene natural products biosynthesis in specialized plant tissues. The mint family (Lamiaceae), synthesizes and stores volatile terpenes in glandular trichomes. Using a comparative transcriptomic approach, we identified differences in gene expression of monoterpene biosynthetic genes among mint species with different oil profiles. We also assembled the genome of a mint species, Mentha longifolia. The genome assembly will be valuable for future mint research.
To further investigate biosynthetic processes in mint, I developed a detailed mathematical model of the metabolism of peppermint glandular trichomes. The model incorporates multiple sources of data, including transcriptome data, metabolite data, enzymatic data from the peppermint literature, and previously developed models of plant metabolism. The creation of a new metabolic modeling software package, called YASMEnv, facilitated construction of the model. Model-based simulated reaction knockouts using flux balance analysis revealed that fermentation may be important for ATP regeneration in secretory phase glandular trichomes. Follow up experiments confirmed high levels of alcohol dehydrogenase activity in secretory phase isolated trichomes. Simulations also supported an essential role for ferredoxin and ferredoxin-NADP reductase. Transcriptome analysis revealed the presence of an isoform of ferredoxin in trichomes distinct from the one expressed in root. The presence of a distinct ferredoxin isoform in trichomes supports the hypothesis that selection pressure for efficient natural products biosynthesis may also act on the enzymes of primary metabolism.

rendering zdock server results using python and UCSF Chimera

Problem:
I was interested in learning where the protein-protein interaction sites were on a particular protein (the receptor). I had pdb files for that protein, and for three proteins that it is known to bind to (the ligands). There are specific amino-acids of interest on the receptor protein, where there is variability among different species. For every combination of receptor and ligand, I want to perform a prediction of where the proteins interact, and then generate an image where the variable amino-acids are highlighted.

Gratefulness and Compassion meditation

Meditation is a way to slow down and appreciate life. For me, it is a way to relax, and prepare for the day, and to fight back against negative thoughts and attitudes that sometimes accumulate in my mind.

There's no one right way to meditate. You can try to empty your mind. You can focus intently on your breath, or on some mantra, or on different parts of your body. You can listen carefully and try to concentrate on perceiving your surroundings. The only rules are to be calm and to be positive. Meditation can sometimes veer into or negative thinking, or rumination: thinking about how other people owe you something, or how you've been mistreated or disrespected, or how you're somehow in an unfixable situation (you're not). Take care that your meditation does not become rumination.

I like to try out different kinds of meditation. Some I read about, some I invent on my own. I recently explained how I think that gratefulness and compassion are the two most important emotions. The rest of this post explains Gratefulness and Compassion Meditation, which is a way to cultivate those two emotions through practice.