August 7, 2014

Frontiers in Biochemistry lecture series starts Aug. 22

The Vanderbilt University community is invited to attend “Frontiers in Biochemistry,” a new seminar series that will be held at noon on Fridays in 214 Light Hall beginning this month.

by Katherine Venmar

The Vanderbilt University community is invited to attend “Frontiers in Biochemistry,” a new seminar series that will be held at noon on Fridays in 214 Light Hall beginning this month.

On Aug. 22, Rachel Green, Ph.D., professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Johns Hopkins University, will kick off the series with a discussion entitled “A ribosome-centric look at mRNA surveillance.”

Green is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator whose broad interest is to understand mechanisms that contribute to the high fidelity of protein synthesis during translation. Recent publications focus specifically on the regulation and participation of ribosomes in this process.

Upcoming speakers include:

On Sept. 5, Brian Shoicet, Ph.D., professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco, who will discuss “a metabolic code for chemical signaling;” and

On Sept. 26, Joaquin Espinosa, Ph.D., associate professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder, whose talk is entitled “Taming the p53 network for effective cancer therapies.”

Shoicet’s work involves novel docking screens for improving ligand discovery and improving fragment screens for better fragment-based drug discovery, while Espinosa’s lab focuses on the activity and regulation of the transcription factor p53.

The Department of Biochemistry is sponsoring the series. For information about upcoming seminars, visit the department’s website at http://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/biochemistry.