Title: Study of the regulation of meiosis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Meiosis is a specialised form of cell division in which diploid cells divide to form four non-identical spores containing half the genetic complement of the parent. During this cell division program, much of the usual machinery regulating cell division is put to alternate use to allow the cells undergo an extra round of division without an intervening phase of DNA synthesis. In particular, the end of the first division, meiosis I, must be regulated differently than the end of the mitotic division. We are using the model organism Saccaromyces cerevisiae to determine some of these differences in regulation, with the aim of contributing to a mathematical model of the regulation of meiosis.

Supervisors: Prakash Arumugam (Life Sciences, Warwick University) BelaNovak (Oxford)