Last week, CIGENE hosted a seminar by Eivind Undheim from the University of Oslo. Eivind gave a great talk covering his research using animal venoms as a means to improve our understanding of evolution (title and abstract below).
Eivind’s seminar was part of the CIGENE seminar series, which has in recent years hosted largely internal speakers from CIGENE. As part of this series we now plan to host regular in-person seminars by external speakers (approx 4-6 per year), which are of broader interest and open to any participants who would like to join us at campus NMBU. These seminars will be promoted widely across the Faculty of Biosciences and Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.
Keep an eye on the CIGENE seminars page of the website for an updated list of speakers, and feel free to contact us if you are interested in receiving direct notifications about future seminars.
Eivind Undheim seminar details:
Title: Animal venoms as models for understanding mechanisms of evolutionary innovation
Abstract: Animal venoms are cocktails of bioactive polypeptides (“toxins”) and have evolved independently in over 100 animal lineages where they are used primarily for predation and defense. The most striking example of defensive uses of venoms are snake bites, with about 2.5 million people envenomed globally each year. However, venoms also offer a unique opportunity to dissect the molecular underpinnings of adaptation and evolutionary innovation and novelty: They are transparent, complex traits whose contributing genes can readily be identified and studied both individually and in the context of whole venom functional phenotypes. Among venomous snakes, one of the most peculiar defensive innovations is the spraying or “spitting” of venom by spitting cobras, which is enabled by a combination of molecular changes in the venom and modification of venom-delivering fangs. In this talk I will present some of our recent work on how this defensive behaviour and associated adaptations evolved, which also highlights the usefulness of combining a wide range of experimental methods, from mass spectrometry to genomics.