The spring 2015 Biotechnology/Life Sciences Seminar Series opens with a Jan. 21 presentation by UNL’s Paul Blum.

All lectures in the series are at 4 p.m. on Wednesdays through April 22 (except March 25) in the Beadle Center, Room E103. Each talk includes a 3:30 p.m. reception. The lectures are free and open to faculty, staff and students.

Blum, professor of biological sciences and associate director of UNL’s Center for Energy Sciences Research, will discuss “The Synthetic and Omic Biology of Extremophiles.”

Extremeophiles are microbes that live in environments typified by extreme conditions. Blum’s research is focused on understanding how extremeophiles survive in those habitats using experimental microbial evolution coupled with cell line engineering. Key organisms include extreme thermoacidophilic archaea and hyperthermophilic anaerobic bacteria.

In the talk, Blum will focus on three emerging topics: an archaeal epigenetic-like system; archaeal membrane vesicles in low energy habitats; and the metabolomics of biohydrogen production.

For more information on the talk or the seminar series, go to http://biotech.unl.edu.

Other seminars in the series include:

Jan. 28 — “Uncovering the Biology of Unknown Viruses through Metagenomics and Nucleotide Metabolism Genes,” Eric Wommack, University of Deleware

Feb. 4 — “Functional Mapping: A Computational Framework to Dissect Complex Phenotypes as a Dynamic System,” Rongling Wu, Penn State University

Feb. 11 — “Cellular Reservoirs for HIV-1 Long-Term Persistence Despite Antiretroviral Therapy,” Mathias Lichterfeld, Harvard Medical School

Feb. 18 — “T Cell Movement During the Immune Response and Leukemia,” Judy Cannon, University of New Mexico

Feb. 25 — “Regulation of Biological Activity through Protein Dimerization: Crystallographic Analyses of Invertebrate Hemoglobins and Interferon Regulatory Factors,” William Royer, University of Massachusetts

March 4 — “Gene Paralogs, RNA and Nonsense,” Miles Wilkinson, University of California, San Diego

March 11 — “Geneomic Approaches to the Study of Plant Cell Wall Evolution from Algae to Angiosperms,” Yanbin Yin, North Illinois University

March 18 — “Feedback Control as a Framework for Understanding Tradeoffs in Biology,” Noah Cowan, Johns Hopkins University

March 25 — No seminar due to spring break

April 1 — “Integrating Biochemical Genomics and Quantitative Genetics to Balance the Nutritional Content of Plants,” Dean DellaPenna, Michigan State University

April 8 — “A Genetic and Biochemical Basis for Natural Variation in Maize Aphid Resistance,” Georg Jander, Cornell University

April 15 — “Structure and Replication of Dengue Virus,” Richard Kuhn, Purdue University

April 22 — “Seeing and Organizing the Marine Virosphere to Advance Viral Ecology,” Matthew Sullivan, University of Arizona