11th Annual Stauffer Lectureship (Day 1 of 2): Professor Roger Y. Tsien, University of California, San Diego

11th Annual Stauffer Lectureship (Day 1 of 2): Professor Roger Y. Tsien, University of California, San Diego
Date
Tue May 9th 2006, 4:15 - 5:15pm
Event Sponsor
Chemistry Department
Location
Braun Auditorium

About the Seminar:

Part I: "Synthetic Molecules to Track Protein Functions:

Tetracysteine motifs of 6-12 amino acids can be labeled in live cells with membrane-permeant biarsenical dyes. Unique applications include green vs. red pulse-chase labeling of old vs. new copies of the same protein, electron-microscopic localization, chromophore-assisted light inactivation of a chosen protein without the problems of antibody penetration, and measurement of local Ca2+ within nanometers of proteins such as Ca2+ channels. A newer, chemically orthogonal system uses Zn2+ to link a novel fluorescein-based chelator to hexahistidine motifs. Such labeling highlights surface-exposed hexahistidines and may help resolve a current controversy about the subcellular trafficking of STIM1, an important regulator of Ca2+ influx. 

 

About the Speaker:

Roger Y. Tsien was born in New York City in 1952. He received his A.B. in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard College in 1972. A Marshall Scholarship took him to the Physiological Laboratory at the University of Cambridge (UK), where he received his Ph.D. in 1977 and remained as a Research Fellow until 1981. He became a full Professor in the Department of Physiology-Anatomy at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1989 he moved to the University of California, San Diego, where he is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Professor in the Departments of Pharmacology and of Chemistry & Biochemistry. His honors include the W. Alden Spencer Award in Neurobiology from Columbia University (1991), the Artois-Baillet-Latour Health Prize, Belgium, the Gairdner Foundation International Award, Canada, and the American Heart Association Basic Research Prize (all in 1995), and the Pearse Prize of the Royal Microscopical Society (2000). In 2002 he received the Award for Creative Invention from the American Chemical Society, the Christian B. Anfinsen Award from the Protein Society, and the Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Tsien was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1998. 

Dr. Tsien's research has been at the interfaces between organic chemistry, cell biology, and neurobiology, starting long before such interdisciplinary efforts became fashionable. He is best known for designing and building molecules that either report or perturb signal transduction inside living cells. His current research goals are to understand how the spatial and temporal dynamics of signal transduction orchestrate complex cellular responses such as gene expression and synaptic plasticity. These goals will require improved molecular techniques to see and manipulate small-molecule messengers, protein phosphorylation, and protein-protein interaction in live cells and organisms.