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Dr. James Godde

James GoddeAssociate Professor & Chair of Biology

Contact Information

Phone: 309-457-2350
Email:
jgodde@monm.edu

Office: Rm. 404, Haldeman-Thiessen

Office Hours

11-12 MTWRF

Education

B.S. 1987, Western Illinois University
Ph.D. 1993, University of Illinois
Post-doc, National Institutes of Health

Courses taught

Cell Biology, Genetics, Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Life on Earth, Biotechnology and Human Values, Bioinformatics, Global Perspectives: World Impact of East Asian Science, Introduction to the Liberal Arts.

Research Interests

My laboratory is interested in DNA structure, especially that which is found associated with various repetitive elements of DNA. Although repetitive DNA is often irreverently referred to as "junk" DNA by genome aficionados, it apparently plays an important structural role in the genomes of higher eucaryotes. Perturbing the structure of such DNA repeats appears to have detrimental effects on the cell. For instance, the expansion of certain repetitive DNA sequences has been linked with a number of human diseases. My previous work has studying the packaging of such repeats into chromatin, where DNA is wrapped around spools of protein in order to be packaged into the nucleus.

Two classes of research projects are ongoing in my lab which enable us to elucidate the function of repetitive DNA:

1) “Wet lab” experiments using the thermophilic bacteria, Thermus thermophilus, to better characterize these repeats.
2) “In silico” experiments using computers to search for repetitive elements.

The former approach is currently being used to isolate large plasmids from the bacteria (megaplasmids) which contain CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) and to compare the sequences from different strains. In the future, I would like to isolate our own strains of the bacteria to continue this analysis.

Other projects in my laboratory involve computer-based analysis of genomic sequences, or bioinformatics. People who study this field of science are usually called "data miners" since they take large amounts of data and extract important sequences from them. Since I’m more concerned with junk DNA, my students are more akin to "data junk collectors", or if you prefer, "bioinfomaniacs". Focus here centers on the identification and analysis of repetitive sequences in a wide range of eucaryotic genomes and the prediction of the "bendability" of DNA in these repetitive regions, with the hopes of someday being able to predict their ability to assume structural roles in the genome.

Recent Publications

Godde, J. S. (in press) “Biotechnology” in Encyclopedia of Global Warming, Salem Press: Pasadena, CA.

Godde, J. S. & Ura, K. (in press) Dynamic alterations of linker histone variants during development., Int. J. Dev. Biol.

Godde, J. S. (in press) “Chromosomes and cancer” in Salem Encyclopedia of Health and Medicine: Cancer, Salem Press: Pasadena, CA.

Godde, J. S. (in press) “STR (short tandem repeat) analysis” in Encyclopedia of Forensic Science, Salem Press: Pasadena, CA.

Godde, J. S. & Ura, K. (2008) Cracking the enigmatic linker histone code., J. Biochem. 143:287-293.

Godde, J. S. (2007) “Last human chromosome sequenced” in Magill’s Medical Encyclopedia, 4th rev. ed., Vol. 2, 1122, Salem Press: Pasadena, CA.

Godde, J. S. & Bickerton, A. J. (2006) The repetitive DNA elements called CRISPRs and their associated genes: evidence of horizontal transfer among prokaryotes., J. Molec. Evol., 62, 718-729.

Godde, J. S. (2005) “Genomics” in Magill’s Medical Encyclopedia, 3rd rev. ed., 1066-1070, Salem Press: Pasadena, CA.

Godde, J. S. (2004) “Telomere Length in Clones” in Encyclopedia of Genetics, rev. ed., 730, Salem Press: Pasadena, CA.

Feig, J., Hussein, Y., & Godde, J. S. (2001) Combinatorial libraries of porphyrin derivatives: finding G-quadruplex interactive agents with a high specificity for human telomeric repeats., J Biomol. Struct. Dyn., 18, 967.

Goldman, K., Lembeck, M., & Godde, J. S. (1999) Probing the structure of (CGG)n triplet repeats in the human FMR1 gene via interstrand crosslinking., J Biomol. Struct. Dyn., 16, 1274-1275.

Goldman, K., Donaire, M., & Godde, J. S. (1998) Mapping mitomycin crosslink sites in the human Fragile X gene., National Minority Research Symposium Proceedings., 88.

Godde, J. S., Kas, S.U., Hirst, M. & Wolffe, A.P. (1996) Nucleosome assembly on methylated CGG triplet repeats in the Fragile X Mental Retardation Gene 1 promoter., J. Biol. Chem., 271, 24325-24329.

Godde, J. S., & Wolffe, A.P. (1996) Nucleosome assembly on CTG triplet repeats., J. Biol. Chem., 271, 15222-15229.

Godde, J. S., Nakatani, Y., & Wolffe, A.P. (1995) The amino-terminal tails of the core histones and the translational position of the TATA box determine TBP/TFIIA association with nucleosomal DNA., Nucleic Acids Research., 23, 4557-4564.

Godde, J. S., & Wolffe, A.P. (1995) Disruption of reconstituted nucleosomes: the effect of particle concentration, MgCl2 and KCl concentration, the histone tails and temperature., J. Biol. Chem., 270, 27399-27402.

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