This award supports a two-year collaborative research project between Professor Carl Johnson of Vanderbilt University and Takao Kondo of the National Institute of Basic Biology (NIBB), Okazaki, Japan. Also involved are Professor Susan Goldin of Texas A&M University and Masahiro Ishiura of NIBB. The goal of the project is to elucidate the molecular mechanism of circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms are an adaptation of organisms to the regular daily change of their environment. Although much is known about the formal properties of circadian rhythms that allow them to synchronize to the daily light/dark cycles, almost nothing is known about how these rhythms work on the biochemical level. Two approaches will be utilized. First, the investigators will use the simplest organism now known to express circadian rhythms -- prokaryotic cynaobacteria. Second, they will exploit the genetic tools available in this simple cell to analyze its mechanism. A major effort will be to identify the photoreceptor that is involved by action spectroscopy. This study will rely on the use of the Okazaki Large Spectrograph and Dr. Kondo's video camera apparatus to screen hundreds of colonies for specific manifestations of circadian behavior.
