BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Memento EPFL//
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:EPFL BioE Talks SERIES  "Accounting for Phylogeny in Protein Coevo
 lution Improves Structural Contact Prediction and Reveals Residue Clusters
  With Different Evolutionary Histories"
DTSTART:20201123T160000
DTEND:20201123T163000
DTSTAMP:20260916T120423Z
UID:294eda80e6478c32af5553410e7a5c19c64ea4c9bf7ecfae340061c7
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Kerwyn KC Huang\, Stanford University\, Stanford\, CA (U
 SA)\nWEEKLY EPFL BIOE TALKS SERIES\n \n(note that this talk is number one
  of a double-feature seminar - see details of the second talk here)\n\nAbs
 tract:\nIt has long been appreciated that comparisons among homologous seq
 uences of a protein of interest can reveal residues key to its function an
 d/or structure\, and just as evolutionarily conserved individual residues 
 are generally crucial to proper protein function\, the statistical covaria
 tion (coevolution) between pairs of residues has been shown to carry infor
 mation such as functional subdomains and structural contacts. However\, co
 evolution measurements are often obscured by genetic drift\, which defines
  a protein’s phylogenetic history and gives rise to concurrent variation
  of positions across the protein sequence. Here\, we describe a robust met
 hod for explicitly separating the phylogenetic dimension of coevolution si
 gnal\, and demonstrate that coevolution can occur on multiple phylogenetic
  timescales within a single protein. Our method\, called nested coevolutio
 n (NC)\, can be applied as a correction to any coevolution metric and pred
 icts that poorly conserved residues can nonetheless have important roles i
 n protein function. NC improves structural contact prediction over gold-st
 andard methods\, particularly in subsampled alignments with fewer sequence
 s\, and lowers the noise in detection of sectors of coevolving residues. W
 e show that the NC sectors are spatially compact\, phylogenetically distin
 ct from the rest of the protein in a conservation-independent manner\, and
  predict mutations that disrupt protein activity. Our conceptualization of
  the phylogenetic separation of coevolution represents a departure from pr
 evious attempts to reduce phylogenetic noise\, and enables broad applicati
 on of protein coevolution measurements\, particularly to naturally sparse 
 eukaryotic proteins\, with the potential to elucidate the relationships be
 tween protein evolution and genetic diseases.\n\nBio:\nKC Huang was an und
 ergraduate Physics and Mathematics major in Page House at Caltech\, and sp
 ent a year as a Churchill Scholar at Cambridge University working with Dr.
  Guna Rajagopal on Quantum Monte Carlo simulations of water cluster format
 ion. He received his PhD from MIT working with Prof. John Joannopoulos on 
 electromagnetic flux localization in polaritonic photonic crystals and the
  control of melting at semiconductor surfaces using nanoscale coatings. Du
 ring a short summer internship at NEC Research Labs\, he became interested
  in self-organization in biological systems\, and moved on to a postdoc wi
 th Prof. Ned Wingreen in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton 
 working on the relationships among cell shape detection\, determination\, 
 and maintenance in bacteria. His lab is currently situated in the departme
 nts of Bioengineering and Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford\, and his 
 current interests include cell division\, membrane organization\, cell wal
 l biogenesis\, and collective motility of bacterial communities. His lab i
 s a force to be reckoned with in IM basketball.\n\n\n\n\nZoom link (with r
 egistration) for attending remotely: https://go.epfl.ch/EPFLBioETalks\n\n\
 nIMPORTANT NOTICE: due to restrictions resulting from the ongoing Covid-19
  situation\, this seminar can be followed via Zoom web-streaming only\, fo
 llowing prior one-time registration through the link above.
LOCATION:via Zoom web-streaming only\, due to Covid-19 situation https://g
 o.epfl.ch/EPFLBioETalks https://go.epfl.ch/EPFLBioETalks
STATUS:CONFIRMED
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR