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Office: 308D Briggs Hall
Phone: (530) 752-7755
Email: wsleal@ucdavis.edu
Fax:
(530) 754-8682
complete CV (PDF) |
Walter S. Leal,
Ph.D.
Professor of Entomology
Member of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Graduate Group
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Member of the Agricultural & Environmental Chemistry Graduate Group Group
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- Education:
- Appointment:
- 25% Instruction and Research
- 75% Organized Research
Teaching: Insect Physiology, Seminar in Insect
Physiology Research Interests: Molecular basis of the
highly selective and sensitive insect olfactory system, in
particular, the mechanism(s) involving the fast transport (and
inactivation) of airborne odour molecules (pheromones and other
semiochemicals) through the aqueous environment of the olfactory
sensillum surrounding the olfactory receptors. Isolation,
identification, and cloning of the genes encoding odourant-binding
proteins and odourant-degrading enzymes and expression of proteins
for structural and biophysical studies of pheromone perception.
Also, I am interested in isolation, identification and synthesis
of insect pheromones and other
semiochemicals.
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Selected Publications:
1. Leal, W. S. 1996 Chemical communication in scarab beetles:
Reciprocal behavioral agonist-antagonist activities of chiral pheromones.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93: 12112-12115.
2. Leal, W. S., P. H. G. Zarbin, H. Wojtasek, S. Kuwahara, M. Hasegawa, and Y. Ueda. 1997. Medicinal alkaloid as a sex pheromone.
Nature 385: 213.
3. Leal, W. S., A. M. Chen, Y. Ishida, V. P. Chiang, M. L. Erickson, T. I. Morgan, and J. M. Tsuruda. 2005. Kinetics and molecular properties of pheromone binding and release.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102:5386-5391.
4. Ishida, Y. and W. S. Leal. 2005. Rapid inactivation of a moth pheromone. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102:14075-14079.
5. Wogulis, M., T. I. Morgan, Y. Ishida, W. S. Leal, and D. K. Wilson. The crystal structure of an odorant binding protein from Anopheles gambiae: Evidence for a common ligand release mechanism. Biochem.
Biophys. Res. Commun. 339: 157-164, 2006.
6. Syed, Z., Y. Ishida, K. Taylor, D. A. Kimbrell and W. S. Leal. 2006. Pheromone reception in fruit flies expressing a moth's odorant receptor.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103:16538-16543.
7. Syed, Z., and W. S. Leal. 2007. Maxillary Palps Are Broad Spectrum Odorant Detectors in
Culex quinquefasciatus. Chem. Senses 32:727-738.
8. Ishida, Y. and W. S. Leal. 2008. Chiral discrimination of the Japanese beetle sex pheromone and a behavioral antagonist by a pheromone-degrading enzyme.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 105: 9076-9080.
9. Syed, Z. and W. S. Leal. 2008. Mosquitoes smell and avoid the insect repellent DEET. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 105:13598-13603.
10. Leal, W. S., R. M. R. Barbosa, W. Xu, Y. Ishida, Z. Syed, N. Latte, A. M. Chen, T. I. Morgan, A. J. Cornel, and A. Furtado. 2008. Reverse and conventional chemical ecology approaches for the development of oviposition attractants for Culex mosquitoes.
PLoS ONE, 3(8): e3045. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003045.
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