Mr. Marcos Sotomayor
Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL

Thursday, March 3, 2005
2:00 pm (CT)
1227 Beckman Institute

Abstract

The vertebrate senses of hearing and balance employ mechanically sensitive hair cells to transform complex mechanical stimuli produced by sound and acceleration into electrical signals. The biophysics of this process and the microscopic structures involved are well understood. However, only over the last two years the basic molecular structures involved have been discovered. The lecture will show how the biophysically defined properties of the transduction apparatus for hearing is correlated with the proteins the apparatus comprises.