biology

Kimmen Sjölander

Kimmen Sjölander is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kimmen Sjölander rather than just read about it. In short: Kimmen Sjölander (née Warnow) is professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Bioengineering. She is well known for her work on protein sequence analysis.

Key takeaways

Kimmen Sjölander belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kimmen Sjölander to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kimmen Sjölander from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kimmen Sjölander (née Warnow) is professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Bioengineering. She is well known for her work on protein sequence analysis.

Biography Sjölander did both her undergraduate and graduate work at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the Department of Computer Science, earning a bachelor's degree in 1993 and a PhD in 1997 under the supervision of David Haussler. She was the chief scientist in the Molecular Applications Group from 1997-1999 (company co-founded by Michael Levitt) and then principal scientist in Protein Informatics at Celera Genomics from 1999-2001, where she was a member of the team (along with J. Craig Venter and Gene Myers) who assembled and annotated the Human Genome. She joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Bioengineering in 2001 as an assistant professor. She was tenured in 2006, and promoted to full professor in 2012.

Awards Sjölander received the NSF CAREER Award and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2003.

Research Sjölander is most well known for her work in phylogenomic methods for protein sequence analysis, including machine learning methods for functional site prediction and ortholog identification, and hidden Markov model (HMM) methods for protein structure prediction, functional subfamily and ortholog classification, remote homology detection, multiple sequence alignment, and phylogenetic tree estimation. Her algorithms were used in the functional annotation of the human genome at Celera Genomics, in the PhyloFacts bioinformatics databases and portals, and contributed to the ModBase database.

Personal Sjölander's twin sister Tandy Warnow is a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign.

Selected publications Venter, J Craig; et al. (2001), "The sequence of the human genome", Science, 291 (5507): 1304–1351, Bibcode:2001Sci...291.1304V, doi:10.1126/science.1058040, PMID 11181995. Krogh, Anders; Brown, Michael; Mian, Saira; Sjölander, Kimmen; Haussler, David (1994), "Hidden Markov models in computational biology: Applications to protein modeling", Journal of Molecular Biology, 235 (5): 1501–1531, doi:10.1006/jmbi.1994.1104, PMID 8107089. Sjolander, Kimmen; Karplus, Kevin; Brown, Michael; Hughey, Richard; Krogh, Anders; Mian, Saira; Haussler, David (1996), "Dirichlet mixtures: a method for improved detection of weak but significant protein sequence homology", Bioinformatics, 12 (4): 327–345, doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/12.4.327, PMID 8902360.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kimmen Sjölander

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kimmen Sjölander claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kimmen Sjölander before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kimmen Sjölander ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kimmen Sjölander

In research: Kimmen Sjölander appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kimmen Sjölander in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kimmen Sjölander is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century American women, American bioinformaticians, American evolutionary biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kimmen Sjölander outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kimmen Sjölander in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kimmen Sjölander means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kimmen Sjölander out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kimmen Sjölander in simple terms?

Kimmen Sjölander (née Warnow) is professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Bioengineering. She is well known for her work on protein sequence analysis.

Why does Kimmen Sjölander matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kimmen Sjölander?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kimmen Sjölander.