Abstract DBI 9750055 Belinda Chang This action funds an NSF/Alfred P. Sloan Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Molecular Evolution for 1997. 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 "Reconstructing ancestral pigment proteins in vitro to investigate the molecular evolution of wavelength sensitivity." Visual pigments called opsins are components in vision and display a wide range of wavelength sensitivities. The evolution of vertebrate cone visual pigments is being studied by constructing a phylogeny, expressing artificially synthesized genes in vitro, and measuring absorption spectra of the resulting opsins. Knowledge gained on the evolutionary history of opsin wavelength sensitivity will be used to assess hypotheses concerning the biochemical mechanisms of shifts in wavelength sensitivity.
