Just over a week away now…

1. Introduction
   1. What is D2O?
   2. The history of D2O
      1. Gilbert Lewis:
         1. purification
         2. biological effects
         3. The hypothesis
      2. Joseph Katz
         1. various experiments
   3. Uses of D2O
      1. NMR, mass spec
      2. The need for a D2O adapted organism
   4. Experiments in DDW
      1. use for space travel
      2. cure for cancer?
2. The effects on life
   1. Tobacco Seeds
      1. The Crumley experiment and repeating the experiment
      2. Tobacco seed germination rate
      3. tobacco seed growth rate in low deuterium concentration
   2. Arabidopsis
      1. arabidopsis growth rate
      2. arabidopsis morphology
   3. E. coli
      1. growth rates
      2. adaptation and adapted growth
      3. morphology
   4. Yeast
      1. growth rates
      2. adaptation – can’t adapt
      3. morphology
         1. stall during cell division
         2. microtubule stabilization in D2O
3. Molecular effects
   1. Stabilization of biomacromolecules
      1. DLS experiments
         1. Catalase
         2. Ovalbumin
      2. YPD longevity
   2. Investigation of HD exchange
      1. mechanism and exploitation for protein struture studies
      2. FT-IR analysis
      3. Cavity ring-down analysis
         1. low cost measurement of local atmosphere isotopic composition
   3. Effect on DNA
      1. The pursuit of shotgun DNA mapping
      2. optical tweezers
      3. methods
      4. overstretching data
4. Future Work
   1. Arabidopsis
      1. adaptation
      2. seed growth in low deuterium
   2. Tobacco growth in low D2O
   3. Yeast morphology in taxol
   4. E coli protein expression in D2O and protein structure analysis
   5. DNA
      1. overstretching in D2O with intercalators

Well there is my idea of how to present my dissertation. I’m not sure if/where I should put my discussion on open notebook science. Also there are a couple things that I could see going elsewhere. I could describe the yeast and e. coli stuff in parallel instead of one after another. Also the HD exchange stuff could easily go right after the yeast, e. coli, or even the tobacco seed stuff. What to do…

Otherwise I think the story is pretty compelling: history of D2O and the unanswered question by Lewis. Investigations into D2O effects and trying to understand low D2O concentration effects, effects on macromolecules, and the understanding of large volume/long-term HD exchange.

Any feedback you may have would be GREATLY appreciated. I’ll send you a figshare t-shirt, or if you are XL, I’ll send you a hoodie (but I only have one).