Title: "Sequence comparison: what statisticians should know about the biologists' favorite tool"
Speaker: Rick Westerman
Place: KRAN G016; Tuesday, 4:30pm

Abstract
Knowing what other organisms have genes similar to the ones you are studying, potential intra-organism gene duplications, and how whole genomes match up to each other is an extremely important piece of information. Such knowledge can lead to a better understanding of one's favorite organism and/or gene.

This talk will go through the need for, common algorithms used by, and potential pitfalls encountered in sequence comparison. Focus will be on the ever popular BLAST program and some of the less commonly used variants (MegaBlast, PSI-Blast, RPS-Blast, etc.) that have recently been made available.