The human genome has been decoded, but the real work begins now: to discover the function of the genes and their interaction in order to develop novel therapeutic agents drugs to treat diseases. The use of microarrays is one of the main tools in order to do this. The analysis of microarrays, which is an essential component for state of the art research, is the focus of our proposal. Our approach will be multidisciplinary with the purpose of serving the molecular biology area, but including tools from biology, mathematics, statistics, electrical engineering, and computer science. Microarray experiments are very expensive and usually involve sacrifice of animals. Consequently, an essential component of our research focus will be to develop experimental design tools as well as innovative mathematical models that will minimize the number of experiments. An innovative mathematical model allows us to narrow the research and allows a better study of its properties. This allows generalized models, which are more useful for the applications. This is the kind of work we have done in our generalization of Boolean models. We are currently studying much more complex models. In summary, our work in models will focus on 1) formulating the models, 2) studying their properties, theoretically or with the use the computers, 3) interaction with biological reality, and 4) refinements of the model to better fit the application. Another important component of our research will focus on the development of error correcting capacity for microarrays in order to solve the problem of experimental noise. An important point of our project is our collaboration with the projects of Dr. Sandra Pena (conditioned taste aversion in rats) and Dr. Garcia-Arraras (regeneration in sea cucumbers). In this collaboration they will provide us with their data, and we will use our tools to analyze the data. We will also help in the design of their experiments in order to determine the optimal number of replications. Dr. Pena and Dr. Garcia will help us develop better data-processing/modeling techniques by testing them in their projects as representatives of a larger class of biological experiments.
| Ramírez-Camejo, Luis A; Maldonado-Morales, Génesis; Bayman, Paul (2017) Differential Microbial Diversity in Drosophila melanogaster: Are Fruit Flies Potential Vectors of Opportunistic Pathogens? Int J Microbiol 2017:8526385 |
| Morales-Rivera, Keyla F; Piñero Cruz, Dalice M; Prieto, Jose A (2017) Crystal structure of (-)-(S)-4-[(2S,3S,4S,Z)-3-hydroxy-4-methyl-hept-5-en-2-yl]-1,3-dioxolan-2-one. Acta Crystallogr E Crystallogr Commun 73:1070-1072 |
| García-Arriaga, Marilyn; Acosta-Santiago, Maxier; Cruz, Antony et al. (2017) Probing the Limits of Supramolecular G-Quadruplexes Using Atomistic Molecular Dynamics Simulations. Inorganica Chim Acta 468:209-222 |
| Huang, Qing; Quiñones, Edwin (2016) A spectroscopic method to determine the activity of the restriction endonuclease EcoRV that involves a single reaction. Anal Biochem 497:103-5 |
| Mège, Pascal; Schizas, Nikolaos V; Reyes, Joselyd García et al. (2015) Genetic seascape of the threatened Caribbean elkhorn coral, Acropora palmata, on the Puerto Rico Shelf. Mar Ecol (Berl) 36:195-209 |
| Morales-Rivera, Amarilys; Hernández-Burgos, Mayté M; Martínez-Rivera, Arlene et al. (2014) Anxiolytic effects of oxytocin in cue-induced cocaine seeking behavior in rats. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 231:4145-55 |
| Ramírez-Camejo, Luis A; Torres-Ocampo, Ana P; Agosto-Rivera, José L et al. (2014) An opportunistic human pathogen on the fly: strains of Aspergillus flavus vary in virulence in Drosophila melanogaster. Med Mycol 52:211-9 |
| Martínez-Rivera, Arlene; Rodríguez-Borrero, Enrique; Matías-Alemán, María et al. (2013) Metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 within nucleus accumbens shell modulates environment-elicited cocaine conditioning expression. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 110:154-60 |
| Galindo-Cardona, Alberto; Acevedo-Gonzalez, Jenny P; Rivera-Marchand, Bert et al. (2013) Genetic structure of the gentle Africanized honey bee population (gAHB) in Puerto Rico. BMC Genet 14:65 |
| Santiago-Rodriguez, Tasha M; Rivera, Jessica I; Coradin, Mariel et al. (2013) Antibiotic-resistance and virulence genes in Enterococcus isolated from tropical recreational waters. J Water Health 11:387-96 |
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