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SUMMARY:Single-Molecule Bioanalytics with High Spatial and Temporal Resolu
 tion
DTSTART:20190524T140000
DTEND:20190524T150000
DTSTAMP:20260407T002805Z
UID:fbdef605a652fe4327ae66bf2106f3a1bb775ca66c068b069b34619b
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Alexandre Fürstenberg\, Ph.D.\, Department of Inorganic and A
 nalytical Chemistry\, University of Geneva (CH)\nBIOENGINEERING SEMINAR\n
  \nAbstract:\nMolecular interactions are at the heart of chemistry and bi
 ology. Understanding their fundamentals in complex biological processes is
  essential to help fight diseases and develop new drugs in an educated way
 . Single-molecule fluorescence techniques\, especially when coupled to met
 hods enabling a good spatial and/or temporal resolution\, are in principle
  uniquely suited to follow and quantify molecular interactions in biologic
 al systems because of the sensitivity of the fluorescence signal to the di
 rect environment of the probe. However\, to be truly quantitative\, a fluo
 rescent sensor requires that the origin of the modulation of the fluoresce
 nce signal (intensity\, lifetime\, …) during a change in the interaction
  of interest be fully understood and therefore that the intrinsic photophy
 sics of the probe be well characterized.\nMy talk will cover two research 
 areas for which we have been developing such quantitative fluorescence sin
 gle-molecule sensors. Firstly\, I will show that\, when it comes to the ch
 oice of a fluorophore to tag a biomolecule\, it is often overlooked that w
 ater\, which is ubiquitous in a biological environment\, is a weak\, yet w
 ell-known fluorescence quencher. Nonetheless\, understanding the quenching
  mechanism enabled us to design ways to improve the resolution in super-re
 solution experiments and to use standard fluorescent dyes to quantify the 
 number of water molecules in the direct environment of the fluorophore. In
  the second part\, I will focus on our application of single-molecule tech
 niques and development of novel imaging\, labeling and analysis methods wi
 th the goal of improving our understanding of the function and dynamics of
  G protein-coupled receptors\, the largest family of membrane proteins in 
 humans which and which are targeted by ~40% of currently available medicin
 es.\n\nBio:\nAlexandre Fürstenberg studied chemistry and biochemistry at 
 the Universities of Lausanne and Geneva in Switzerland. He specialized in 
 photochemistry and ultrafast dynamics of biomolecules with Eric Vauthey at
  the University of Geneva (PhD 2007) before moving into single-molecule sp
 ectroscopy and imaging as a postdoc with W. E. Moerner at Stanford Univers
 ity (2008-2010). In 2010\, he started his independent research thanks to a
 n Ambizione fellowship of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the Fac
 ulty of Medicine of the University of Geneva. After further research stays
  as a visiting assistant professor at The Rockefeller University in New Yo
 rk in the Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Signal Transduction led by Th
 omas P. Sakmar (2014-2016) and at the Goethe University Frankfurt in the g
 roup of Mike Heilemann (2016)\, he held a lecturing appointment at the Uni
 versity of Fribourg. Since 2017\, he has been a senior lecturer at the Uni
 versity of Geneva in the Department of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry.
  His research focuses on the development and application of fluorescence s
 pectroscopy and microscopy tools\, with an emphasis on quantitative single
 -molecule fluorescence sensors for biology to investigate the dynamics of 
 G protein-coupled receptors.\n 
LOCATION:MED 0 1418
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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