Abstract DBI-9803928 Christopher Burge This action funds an NSF/Alfred P. Sloan Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Molecular Evolution for 1998. These fellowships support studies involving the theoretical, comparative, computational, and/or experimental analyses of biological patterns and processes at the molecular level within the framework of organismic evolutionary change and adaptation. These studies also include the use of molecular data to address broader evolutionary questions. Each fellowship supports a research and training plan to be carried out in a sponsoring laboratory. The research and training plan for this fellowship is entitled evolution of sequences involved in RNA splicing. The research has two goals: first, to develop and apply new computational methods for analyzing the functional constraints on a DNA or RNA signal sequence such as the 5' splice signal or branch point signal involved in pre-mRNA splicing and second, to search available intron and exon sequences for novel repeat type signals involved in regulation of altemative splicing.
