Chemical Biology Seminar: Professor Stavroula Hatzios, Yale University
About the Seminar
"Uncovering Hidden Redox Transformations by the Human Microbiome"
Bacteria that chronically colonize the host must adapt to various forms of stress in the host environment. The molecular mechanisms cells use to sense and respond to these environmental signals are crucial for maintaining homeostasis at the host–microbe interface. My lab uses chemical tools to discover proteins, post-translational modifications, and metabolites that shape cellular responses to environmental cues in the gastrointestinal tract. Our primary goal is to understand how bacterial and host cells adapt to oxidative stress, which contributes to the development of severe diseases including gastrointestinal cancers. In this talk, I will present our work developing reactivity-guided proteomic and metabolomic approaches to uncover redox-active proteins and metabolites that influence cancer signaling and cellular physiology at the host–microbe interface.
About the Speaker
Stavroula Hatzios is an Associate Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and of Chemistry in the Microbial Sciences Institute at Yale University. She received her B.S. in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she worked with Sarah E. O’Connor, and her Ph.D. in Chemistry with Carolyn Bertozzi at the University of California, Berkeley. As a graduate student, Stavroula discovered a stress response pathway that modulates the cell wall structure and antibiotic resistance of the tuberculosis pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. After earning her Ph.D., she was awarded a global health research fellowship to study M. tuberculosis infection in Uganda. Stavroula completed her postdoctoral work in Matthew Waldor’s lab at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she was a Charles A. King Trust Postdoctoral Fellow. There, she used activity-based proteomics to identify host and pathogen enzymes active in an animal model of cholera. Her lab at Yale studies proteins, post-translational modifications, and metabolites that shape host–microbe interactions in the gastrointestinal tract. Stavroula has received several early-career awards including a Beckman Young Investigator Award, a Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry, and an ACS Infectious Diseases/ACS Division of Biological Chemistry Young Investigator Award.
Host: Laura Dassama
This seminar is supported by the William S. Johnson endowment honoring this esteemed chemist, who made significant contributions in the areas of synthetic and bioorganic chemistry.