While the IGBB Service Center can perform low-risk, fairly routine biomolecular tasks on a fee-per-service basis, some of your research goals may require (or would most readily be completed with) the help of professionals trained in advanced procedures and/or data analysis techniques. The IGBB research associates, most of whom have Ph.D. degrees and/or many years of practical experience, can be hired to conduct research tasks associated with their specialties. For example, let's say you need an expert in RNA isolation and RNAseq to help you complete a portion of a research project. You could train a student or postdoc to become proficient in these research tasks, but you may not have the experience, time, or money to train someone. Moreover, you may not have the instrumentation you need to do the research correctly. This is where the IGBB can help. Rather than training someone new, you can hire a highly skilled IGBB scientist to perform the research for you. The savings in cost and time is tremendous! The process works like this:
- The principal investigator (PIs) interested in determining whether
the IGBB can help them in their research/analyses contacts one of the IGBB's Research Leads.
- The Research Lead(s) sets up a meeting with the PI to discuss project goals, feasibility, and
approaches. This consultation is free.
- If the PI and the Research Lead agree to a research plan, the
Research Lead
will generate an itemized quote for the PI that includes salary, fringe, reagent
costs, machine costs, etc. The duration of the employment agreement depends upon the needs of the customer and can range from a few hours to several months. In addition, IGBB employment agreements can cover fairly low weekly time committments spread out over long stretches (e.g., a customer may hire an IGBB employee to work on a project 5 hours a week for four years). Overhead charges and/or HPC² retainage costs may or may not be
applicable. Once a plan is set between a PI and an IGBB Research Lead, a final quote will be sent to the PI for approval. Once the PI approves the quote, work can begin.
If you don't have funding in hand, but are working on a grant proposal, you can include the participation of an IGBB expert-for-hire in your proposal budget (note: you must make such agreements with the expert-for-hire through a MyIGBB itemized quote). To discuss a hiring an IGBB expert, please contact one of the IGBB's Research Leads by phone or e-mail.
NOTE: PIs are asked to consider whether the participation of an IGBB employee in a project merits that employee's inclusion as a co-author on a resulting manuscript(s). The decision ultimately lies with the PI. However, the IGBB encourages IGBB staff and faculty involved in
Proposal Partnerships and
Experts for Hire to discuss/negotiate co-authorship with PIs before starting work on a project.
Differential loss and retention of cytoglobin, myoglobin, and globin-E during the radiation of vertebratesIGBB Authors:
Federico G. HoffmannPUBLICATION YEAR:
2011IMPACT FACTOR:
4.844CITATION COUNT:
Hoffmann FG, Opazo JC, Storz JF (2011) Differential loss and retention of cytoglobin, myoglobin, and globin-E during the radiation of vertebrates.
Genome Biology & Evolution 3(1): 588-600.
DOI:
10.1093/gbe/evr055EID:
2-s2.0-84856397079PMID: 21697098
DOWNLOAD PDFABSTRACTIf rates of postduplication gene retention are positively correlated with levels of functional constraint, then gene duplicates that have been retained in a restricted number of taxonomic lineages would be expected to exhibit relatively low levels of sequence conservation. Paradoxical patterns are presented by gene duplicates that have been retained in a small number of taxa but which are nonetheless subject to strong purifying selection relative to paralogous members of the same multigene family. This pattern suggests that such genes may have been co-opted for novel, lineage-specific functions. One possible example involves the enigmatic globin-E gene (GbE), which appears to be exclusively restricted to birds. Available data indicate that this gene is expressed exclusively in the avian eye, but its physiological function remains a mystery. In contrast to the highly restricted phyletic distribution of GbE, the overwhelming majority of jawed vertebrates (gnathostomes) possess copies of the related cytoglobin (Cygb) and myoglobin (Mb) genes. The purpose of the present study was 1) to assess the phyletic distribution of the Cygb, Mb, and GbE genes among vertebrates, 2) to elucidate the duplicative origins and evolutionary histories of these three genes, and 3) to evaluate the relative levels of functional constraint of these genes based on comparative sequence analysis. To accomplish these objectives, we conducted a combined phylogenetic and comparative genomic analysis involving taxa that represent each of the major lineages of gnathostome vertebrates. Results of synteny comparisons and phylogenetic topology tests revealed that GbE is clearly not the product of a recent, bird-specific duplication event. Instead, GbE originated via duplication of a proto-Mb gene in the stem lineage of gnathostomes. Unlike the Mb gene, which has been retained in all major gnathostome lineages other than amphibians, the GbE gene has been retained only in the lineage leading to modern birds and has been independently lost in at least four major lineages: teleost fish, amphibians, mammals, and nonavian reptiles. Despite the restricted phyletic distribution of this gene, our results indicate that GbE is one of the most highly conserved globins in the avian genome.
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