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Fall 2021
Disease resilience is defined as an animal’s ability to maintain a high level of performance in the face of disease challenges caused by multiple pathogens, as is often the case in commercial pig farms. Therefore, disease resilience is anticipated to be critical to the profitability of the pig...
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Spring 2011
Forkhead (Fox) proteins are transcription factors that function in many processes including development, metabolism and cell cycle regulation. This gene family is divided into subfamilies that appear to originate from a common ancestor. I have identified the evolutionary selection pressures...
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Gene expression and sensory structures in sponges: Explorations of sensory-neural origins in a non-bilaterian context
DownloadFall 2017
The nervous system is present in all but two animal phyla – one of them being Porifera, sponges. Sponges have no neurons and yet have organized behavior and finely tuned sensation. Furthermore, sponges have genes involved in the nervous system of other animals (informally called ‘neural’ genes)....
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Genetic diversity and selection in North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus): A Hamiltonian perspective into the processes and mechanisms of evolution
DownloadFall 2013
The theory of natural selection has advanced our understanding in every aspect of biological sciences, yet despite this seeming ubiquity, there remain some components that are not fully resolved. Natural selection predicts the “selfish” advancement of genes that are optimally suited for their...
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Genetic population structure of walleye (Sander vitreus) in northern Alberta and application to species management
DownloadFall 2010
Walleye (Sander vitreus) is an economically valuable freshwater fish throughout North America. In Alberta, pressure from sport fishing and commercial fishing make effective management and protection of this species crucial to its sustainability. Walleye from 12 Alberta lakes were genetically...
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Spring 2024
Trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) is a dioecious clonal tree species with broad distribution in North America. In dioecious species, sexes are predicted to perform differently, based on the principle of allocation and the energy costs associated with reproduction. Aspen reproduce...
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Fall 2021
Clubroot disease, caused by Plasmodiophora brassicae, is a major threat to canola production. Cultivation of resistant cultivars is the key component in managing this disease. Canola is an important oilseed crop in the world; this includes the allopolyploid species Brassica napus L. (AACC genome,...
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Fall 2019
The development of efficacious anticancer therapies has significantly improved the prognosis of childhood cancer patients at the price of predisposing survivors to extensive chronic health problems. Although not fatal, reducing treatment-related hearing loss (ototoxicity) among childhood cancer...
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Spring 2018
Choroideremia is an X-linked monogenic inherited retinal disease. It affects males starting in their teenage years with night blindness followed by progressive vision loss starting in the peripherals and ending with total vision loss late in life. It is estimated that 1 in 50,000 individuals...
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Fall 2017
NPAS3 encodes a transcription factor of the bHLH-PAS family, which has been robustly associated with neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders with intellectual disability as a common feature. NPAS3 was initially discovered as a schizophrenia-associated gene in a family with a translocation...