Inorganic Chemistry Seminar: Professor Liliana Quintanar Vera, Cinvestav
About the Seminar
Copper-protein interactions in degenerative diseases: From the brain to the lens
Copper is an essential cofactor of metalloenzymes, yet it is also implicated in several degenerative diseases, including Alzheimer´s, Parkinson´s, prion diseases, diabetes type 2, and cataracts. Some proteins implicated in these diseases are also copper-binding proteins. Our research group aims to understand the nature of these metal-protein interactions to provide further insights into the bioinorganic chemistry of these diseases. In this seminar, Cu-protein interactions that are key players in neuroprotective mechanisms at the synapse, likely affected in Alzheimer´s disease, will be discussed. Also, our recent findings on the mechanisms of copper-induced aggregation of human lens b/g-crystallins, associated to cataract disease, will be presented; with emphasis in a striking copper reductase activity of g-crystallins.
About the Speaker
Liliana Quintanar was born in Mexico City and graduated with honors from the School of Chemistry of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1998. During her studies at UNAM, she did a one-year exchange visit at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She later did her PhD in Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Edward I. Solomon at Stanford University, where she focused on studying copper enzymes using a wide array of bioinorganic spectroscopic methods. She conducted postdoctoral studies with Prof. Lourdes Massieu at the Institute for Cell Physiology of UNAM, where she studied the mechanisms of manganese neurotoxicity. In 2005, she joined the faculty at the Department of Chemistry at Cinvestav, where she has established a research program focused on the study of metal-protein interactions that are relevant in different neurodegenerative (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and prion diseases) and degenerative (type 2 diabetes and cataracts) diseases. Her research group uses spectroscopic techniques to study copper binding sites in the proteins that form aggregates or plaques in these diseases, to evaluate how the metal ion impacts the folding and aggregation properties of the protein, and to assess the redox activity of the copper-protein complexes. Liliana was awarded a Fulbright-Garcia Robles fellowship to do a sabbatical year (2014-2015) with Prof. Jonathan A. King, at the Department of Biology in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she discovered that metal ions also play a role in the non-amyloid aggregation of lens crystallin proteins, a process associated to cataract pathology. Her research has been funded by Cinvestav, MIT-Seed Funds-Mexico, National Science Foundation (NSF)-Mexico, University of California UC-Mexus programs and by the National Council for Science and Technology in Mexico (Conacyt). She has been invited to deliver lectures at several international conferences and has been awarded the L’Oreal-UNESCOAMC For Women in Science fellowship in 2007, the AMC-FUMEC fellowship for summer visits to USA in 2013, the Cátedra Marcos Moshinsky fellowship in 2016, and a research award from the Mexican Academy of Sciences (highest award for young scientists in Mexico) in 2017. She has also been involved in the organization of several international workshops and conferences in Mexico (including the Latin American meeting in Biological Inorganic Chemistry in 2016), actively promoting academic exchange between Mexico, USA and Latin America. Liliana was admitted to the Mexican Academy of Sciences in 2018 and to the Academy of Sciences for Latin America in 2023.