Date/Time
Date(s) - 26/09/2024
1:30 pm - 2:20 pm

Title: Probing intrinsically disordered proteins by computation and NMR experiments

Date: Thursday September 26, 2024

Time: 1:30-2:20pm

Room: ABB 165

Host: Dr. Giuseppe Melacini

Abstract:
Although they were a curiosity at the start of the millennium, the importance of IDPs (intrinsically disordered proteins) in healthy and disease biology is undisputed today. With the (renewed) appreciation of phase separation in cellular biology, this has only become more pertinent. The structural characterization of IDPs and protein droplets by computation and experiment is still challenging, however, and flexibility and electrostatic interactions play key roles. Currently, methods to probe these essential properties are lagging, and we have therefore developed a series of tools to predict and analyze protein disorder and IDP electrostatics.

In my presentation I will demonstrate how NMR spectroscopy can be used to probe protein (dis)order and included to build a better predictor. I will further show how we have combined concepts from physical chemistry and polymer science to model IDP electrostatics and devised two new methods to experimentally probe the electrostatic potential without the need for pH titrations. Experiment and computation are shown to strongly reinforce each other.

Biography:
My research interests are in structural biology, NMR spectroscopy, dynamics and thermodynamics of biomolecules, protein biophysics, protein electrostatics, protein engineering, intrinsically disordered proteins, protein aggregation and disease, bioinformatics, metabolomics, in cell and in vivo spectroscopy. I strive for quantitative physical explanations for biological phenomena.