Date: Thursday, December 10, 2020
Time: 12:00 pm
Host: Dr. Leslie Loew
Speaker: Petra Schwille, Ph.D., Director of Cellular and Molecular Biophysics, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry
Title: " Proteins unleashed – stunning insights from minimal biological systems"

Abstract: In our ambition to construct a minimal living system based on as few functional components as possible, we have in recent years gained exciting insights into protein self-organization and pattern formation when working with reconstituted proteins in vitro under controlled conditions. Intriguingly, several of the protein functions that we have been discovering and quantitatively studying have never been described in vivo. This can either be explained by the cellular complexity disguising less-dominant phenomena, but it can also point to hidden, non-canonical functions that these proteins only unfold under very particular conditions that are not necessarily physiological. In my talk I will show some of these surprising hidden functions by bacterial proteins and motivate to start thinking about protein function in a more holistic way.

Brief CV: Petra Schwille is Director at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich, Germany, and Honorary Professor at the LMU Munich. She studied physics and philosophy in Stuttgart and Göttingen, and graduated 1993 with Diploma in Physics at the Georg August University, Göttingen. She obtained her Ph.D. in 1996 performed at the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen. After a postdoctoral stay at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, she returned to the MPI Göttingen as a research group leader. In 2002, she accepted a Chair of Biophysics at the TU Dresden. Since 2012, she is heading the department Cellular and Molecular Biophysics at the MPI of Biochemistry. Her scientific interests range from single molecule biophysics to the synthetic biology of reconstituted systems. Her work has been awarded with several prestigious prizes, among them the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation in 2010 and the Braunschweig Research Prize in 2011. She is member of the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), the National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanties (BBAW), and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the Academia Europaea, as well as Honorary Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society (2015) and the Biophysical Society (2017). In 2018, she received the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art.

Meeting Information Below:



Meeting number (access code): 120 345 7641
Meeting password: G6Skmub9Wq5

Thursday, December 10, 2020
11:50 am | (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada) | 1 hr 10 mins

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CAM Meeting
Speaker: Ji Yu
Title: TBA

CCAM Faculty Candidate

Speaker: Michael Guertin, Assistant Professor, Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics, University of Virginia
Title: Mechanisms of gene regulation by transcription factors

Abstract:
Many of the molecular mechanisms underlying well-characterized robust and rapidly inducible transcriptional responses are shared among other systems, so we use the transcriptional response to hormone treatment as a model to study gene regulation. We use rapid kinetic regulation and perturbation of transcription cascades, transcription factors, and cofactors to identify key mechanisms, genes, and regulatory elements that are critical for hormone signaling. Transcription factors act as activators or repressors and interface with a constellation of accessory cofactors to regulate distinct steps in the transcription to coordinate gene expression, but the molecular functions of the vast majority of transcription factors remain uncharacterized. We use molecular genomics and computational methods to classify transcription factors by their molecular function, as opposed to broad activator and repressor classes, in order to understand the context specificity of gene regulation. The genes and regulatory elements that are downstream of the first wave of transcriptional response are critical for propagating regulatory cascades. We generated genome-wide, high temporal resolution time course data of regulatory element activity and nascent transcription upon stimulation of adipogenesis. We applied a rules-based approach to construct a network and identify effector genes and regulatory elements that are critical for signaling in early adipogenesis. Twist2 is a highly connected node in the network and we hypothesize that Twist2 is important for adipogenesis. The role of Twist2 within the context of adipogenesis remains unstudied, but previous observations found that mutations in Twist2 result in a near absence of subcutaneous and brown fat. Our research continues to reveal basic principles and rules that govern transcription factor specificity in order to understand how genetics, nutrition, and environmental factors contribute to variation in transcriptional programs that can lead to disease states or ineffective therapies.

CAM Meeting

Speaker - TBA

CAM Meeting

Cancelled - Christmas Holiday