Frontiers in Biology
Dec 8   4pm
Clark Auditorium, BioX Building

Harvey McMahon, Ph.D.
MRC, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK

"Sculpting Cell Membranes: Understanding pathways of endocytosis and exocytosis"

Cell shape is adapted to function. Organelle shape and local membrane architectures are likewise optimized for the processes that take place on and within these microenvironments. Dr. McMahon's lab focuses on the dynamic regulation of membrane shape, which can occur by the interplay between the transient and regulated insertion of membrane bending motifs and the detection and stabilization of membrane shape. This approach has allowed them not only to describe the biophysics of membrane shape changes but also to take a fresh look at membrane dynamics in physiological processes like exocytosis and endocytosis. In doing so they have noted that proteins with amphipathic helices or hydrophobic membrane-inserting loops are likely to effect or respond to curvature and that the membrane interaction surfaces of proteins can sense shape (like proteins of the BAR Superfamily). This molecular view has allowed them to ascribe novel cell-biological functions to proteins (e.g. the mechanistic affect of synaptotagmin in membrane fusion) and to give a more insightful view of how these processes work. Thus they can now go from the biophysics of a molecule, to better understanding of known pathways and to the molecular characterization of novel cellular trafficking pathways both of endocytosis and exocytosis.

Biochemistry Journal Club
January 26, 2011   12 noon
B402 Biochemistry Library

Ron Davis, Ph.D.

Steph Weber