Peter Ruoff from the Dept. of Mathematics and Natural Science at the University of Stavanger will give a talk on Monday 30 May.
Time: 13.15 - 14.00Place: Norwegian University of Life Sciences - UMB, Biotechnology Building, room BT3A-11 (Traaen)
Peter Ruoff is professor of chemistry at the University of Stavanger (http://www.ux.his.no/~ruoff/). His major field of interest is reaction kinetics of chemical and biological systems. Mostly he has been working with chemical and biological oscillators, like the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction and circadian rhythms (biological clocks). Circadian rhythm, the daily rhythm found in almost all kinds of organisms, is the subject of prof. Ruoff's talk at Ås (http://www.forskning.no/Artikler/2004/april/Den%20biologiske%20klokken), in which he will also demonstrate the usefulness of mathematical modelling in the realm of cellular biology and microbiology.
Temperature has a profound effect on practically all chemical and biochemical reactions. Despite this strong influence certain biological oscillations, all circadian clocks, many ultradian rhythms, as well as a variety of neuronal oscillators are temperature compensated. Temperature compensation means that the oscillator’s period is kept approximately constant within a certain physiological temperature range. In this talk a kinetic theory for temperature compensation is presented and applied to the molecular mechanism of the circadian clock in the model organism Neurospora crassa. Experimental and theoretical data strongly suggest that the occurrence of temperature compensation in Neurospora crassa is a highly regulated process, where the stabilities of key components within the circadian pacemaker play a crucial role. We further show why many chemical or biochemical oscillators are in fact not temperature compensated, but how temperature compensated biochemical oscillators (by taking the glycolytic oscillator as an example) can be constructed. The recent findings of a temperature compensated chemical oscillator supports the described kinetic principles to obtain temperature compensation.
