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Kira Makarova

Kira Makarova 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 Kira Makarova rather than just read about it. In short: Kira S. Makarova (Russian: Кира Макарова) is an American evolutionary biologist known for her research on the biology of CRISPR and Cas9.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Kira S. Makarova (Russian: Кира Макарова) is an American evolutionary biologist known for her research on the biology of CRISPR and Cas9. She is a staff scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Early life and education Makarova grew up in Narva, then part of the Soviet Union and later in Estonia, and competed at the national level in the Soviet Biology Olympiad. After completing high school she tried unsuccessfully for several years to enter Moscow State University. She instead entered the Moscow Medical Institute, but after marrying and having a child she moved to Novosibirsk State University to be closer to her husband's family. There, the shortages of laboratory supplies led her to work in computational biology. She completed a master's degree in 1991, and in 1996 completed a doctorate at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk. Her work at the institute involved the design of synthetic oligonucleotides and, separately, the use of oligopeptide frequency data to classify proteins.

Later career and research When Makarova's husband moved to the US to work with Eugene Koonin in the National Center for Biotechnology Information, Koonin found Makarova a position as research fellow at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, studying Deinococcus radiodurans, a bacterium that can survive several different extreme conditions. In 2001, Koonin hired Makarova to join him at NCBI. At the center, beginning in 2006, Makarova and her co-workers investigated the CRISPR-Cas9 system and its biological function as a bacterial immune system. Interest in the system heightened after other researchers subsequently used it to perform genome editing. Makarova's ongoing research involves comparative genomics, and the genetics and protein functions of archaea. She is the maintainer of a database of archaeal proteins and their relations.

Notable publications Zetsche, Bernd; Gootenberg, Jonathan S.; Abudayyeh, Omar O.; Slaymaker, Ian M.; Makarova, Kira S.; Essletzbichler, Patrick; Volz, Sara E.; Joung, Julia; van der Oost, John; Regev, Aviv; Koonin, Eugene V.; Zhang, Feng (2015). "Cpf1 Is a Single RNA-Guided Endonuclease of a Class 2 CRISPR-Cas System". Cell. 163 (3). Cell Press: 759–771. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2015.09.038. ISSN 0092-8674. PMC 4638220. PMID 26422227. S2CID 3628765. – Cited by Adli, Mazhar (2018). "The CRISPR tool kit for genome editing and beyond". Nature Communications. 9 (1) 1911. Nature Portfolio. Bibcode:2018NatCo...9.1911A. doi:10.1038/s41467-018-04252-2. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 5953931. PMID 29765029. S2CID 21692417. Anzalone, Andrew V.; Koblan, Luke W.; Liu, David R. (2020). "Genome editing with CRISPR–Cas nucleases, base editors, transposases and prime editors". Nature Biotechnology. 38 (7). Nature Portfolio: 824–844. Bibcode:2020NatBi..38..824A. doi:10.1038/s41587-020-0561-9. ISSN 1087-0156. PMID 32572269. S2CID 21692417.

References

External links Kira Makarova publications indexed by Google Scholar

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kira Makarova

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kira Makarova 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 Kira Makarova 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 Kira Makarova 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 Kira Makarova

In research
Kira Makarova 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 Kira Makarova 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
Kira Makarova is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 20th-century American biologists, 20th-century American women biologists, 20th-century American women scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life
Look for Kira Makarova 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 Kira Makarova in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Kira Makarova in simple terms?

Kira S. Makarova (Russian: Кира Макарова) is an American evolutionary biologist known for her research on the biology of CRISPR and Cas9.

Why does Kira Makarova 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 Kira Makarova?

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 Kira Makarova.

Tags

  • 20th-century American biologists
  • 20th-century American women biologists
  • 20th-century American women scientists
  • 21st-century American biologists
  • 21st-century American women biologists
  • American evolutionary biologists
  • American women evolutionary biologists
  • Computational biologists
  • Living people
  • National Institutes of Health people
  • Novosibirsk State University alumni
  • Soviet biologists

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