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SUMMARY:Cryo-EM and the Nano-World of Parkinson's Disease
DTSTART:20190607T120000
DTEND:20190607T133000
DTSTAMP:20260916T220418Z
UID:be6bd92044d67c3f52a526cdaa83d9232c10fb9b6e133685c4c52ad4
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Henning Stahlberg\, Biozentrum\, University of Basel\nCryo-ele
 ctron microscopy is revolutionizing structural biology. The high-resolutio
 n structures of soluble and membrane proteins\, or larger complexes of suc
 h proteins\, can be determined at high efficiency\, as will be demonstrate
 d from recent examples on ion channels and multi-drug resistance membrane 
 proteins. Current limitations of cryo-EM will be outlined\, and approaches
  to advance cryo-EM with respect to resolution\, minimal sample size\, or 
 structure determination efficiency\, will be discussed. The application of
  microfluidic technology\, as well as novel electron microscopy data colle
 ction schemes and data processing workflows will be discussed.\nParkinson
 ’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease of multifactorial origins
 . So far\, available treatments only affect symptoms. The molecular causes
  or cellular mechanisms in PD are not understood\, reliable diagnosis in p
 atients is difficult\, and no treatment is available to slow down or preve
 nt progression of the disease. The protein alpha-synuclein is a prime susp
 ect for the cause of Parkinson’s disease. This soluble protein is capabl
 e of aggregating into prionoid fibrils in a variety of conformational stra
 ins. The structural analysis of these via cryo-EM will be presented\, and 
 high-resolution structures of different alpha-synuclein fibril strains fro
 m wild-type\, as well as post-translationally modified\, truncated\, or PD
 -relevant mutation carrying protein will be presented and discussed.  In 
 parallel\, electron microscopy studies of post-mortem human brain from Par
 kinson’s disease tissue donors with a post-mortem delay of only 3 hours 
 will be presented\, and the ultrastructure of Lewy body plaques in the bra
 in tissue\, which are highly enriched in the protein alpha-synuclein\, wil
 l be discussed. These studies have implications for our understanding of t
 he possible causes and mechanisms of Parkinson’s disease.\n\nPlease regi
 ster and bring your own lunch.\n\nHenning Stahlberg Bio\nHenning Stahlberg
  studied Physics at the Technical University of Berlin\, and obtained his 
 PhD from the EPFL Lausanne in 1997 in Structural Biology (Groups Prof. Hor
 st Vogel and Prof. Jacques Dubochet). He then obtained his Habilitation in
  the group of Prof. Andreas Engel at the Biozentrum of the University of B
 asel in 2002\, and accepted in 2003 a faculty position in Molecular and Ce
 ll Biology at the University of California in Davis\, CA\, USA\, where he 
 established a laboratory for high-resolution structure determination of bi
 ological macromolecules by cryo-transmission electron microscopy.  Since 
 2009\, Stahlberg is Professor and director of the Center for Cellular Imag
 ing and NanoAnalytics (C-CINA) of the Biozentrum at the University of Base
 l.\nThe Stahlberg group is focusing on Parkinson's Disease and on Membrane
  Protein Structures. The main method is cryo-electron microscopy\, which i
 s extended by multidisciplinary approaches\, including use of neuronal cel
 l cultures and human brain tissue\, using expression and purification of r
 elevant protein systems\, and biophysical and structural investigations wi
 th a variety of tools.\nThe group is also developing methods to advance im
 aging capabilities\, ranging from microfluidic devices for handling cells 
 and proteomes\, to developing instrumentation for the preparation of cryo-
 electron microscopy grids from nanoliters of sample\, as well as image pro
 cessing approaches.
LOCATION:BC 420 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==BC%20420
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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