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The Hayashi Lectureship in Cell Physiology
7/22/10 - 9:00 AM, Lillie Auditorium
"The Evolutionary 'Design' of Protein Networks"
Rama Ranganathan, University of Texas Southwest Medical Center
Dr. Ranganathan is the director of the Systems Biology Division of the Green Comprehensive Center for Molecular, Computational, and Systems Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. He received his B.S. degree in bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and his M.D. and Ph.D degrees from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied the mechanisms of visual transduction with Charles Zuker. His postdoctoral work as a Life Sciences Research Foundataion fellow was with Roderick MacKinnon at Harvard Medical School on voltage-gated potassium channels and with Joseph Noel at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies on protein x-ray crystallography.
Transmembrane signaling systems operate in sensory neurons to encode a variety of external signals into fluctuations in membrane potential. These signaling systems display beautiful properties of catalytic signal amplification and extensive feedback regulation that are important for accomplishing their biologic task. How are these properties encoded by the protein networks involved, and how do the biochemical activities of individual proteins contribute to processing external signals? Dr. Ranganathan's laboratory uses a combination of biophysical, structural, and genetic techniques to study the signaling protein complexes that mediate phototransduction, the process of converting photon flux into a graded electrical output in the photoreceptor cells of the Drosophila compound eye. The model system is chosen for the feasibility of the necessary biophysical and structural techniques, and for the availability of powerful molecular genetic tools to generate useful reagents. They are currently focusing their work in two areas: (1) the study of the cycle of activation and inactivation of the G-protein-coupled light-receptor rhodopsin, and (2) the structural mechanisms of assembling signaling proteins into functional macromolecular complexes.
About the Hayashi Lectureship
The Tay Hayashi Lectureship in Cell Physiology was established to pay tribute to a scientist who holds a special place in the hearts and minds of his friends, colleagues, and students.
Teru Hayashi, known by all with affection as “Tay,” needs little introduction here at the MBL. As research mentor, professor, and chairman at Columbia University and the Illinois Institute of Technology, Tay had a profound influence on his field and on budding researchers for more than 50 years. His work on actin remains fundamental to current research, and includes the first quantitative demonstration of the contribution of actin to myosin-based tension development in vitro, and the discovery of “barbed end” actin assembly.
Tay first conducted summer research at the MBL as a graduate student in 1938. He later joined the world-renowned MBL muscle motility group, ultimately playing a vital role in the Laboratory’s institutional growth and development. Moreover, as noted by a dear friend, “his tremendous contributions to tennis, poker, naughty songs, and fishing are legendary.” In short, Tay was the embodiment of the spirit of the Woods Hole community, and of the scientific achievement and intellectual freedom synonymous with the MBL. Today we celebrate and remember that lifelong achievement, precious freedom, and indomitable spirit with the third Tay Hayashi Lecture in Cell Physiology.
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