McConnell Lectureship: Professor Dame Carol V. Robinson, University of Oxford
McConnell Lectureship: Professor Dame Carol V. Robinson, University of Oxford (Host: Professor Steve Boxer)
**This seminar is available for in-person attendance.**
"A new phase for structural biology"
About the Seminar
While cryo-EM has transformed our view of the structures of protein assemblies, behind the scenes gas phase structural biology has been emerging. Over a number of decades mass spectrometrists have revealed that the folding and topology of protein complexes can be retained in the gas phase, if appropriate experimental parameters are applied. These discoveries led to early compelling studies of antibody-antigen complexes, viruses, ribosomes and molecular chaperones. More recently ‘snapshots’ of membrane protein complexes in the gas phase have been particularly enlightening. Widely considered the most challenging of protein complexes, but yet the most important given their physiological roles, the gas phase turns out to be an excellent medium in which to interrogate hydrophobic membrane proteins. When encased in detergent micelles, or other membrane mimetics, the effects of lipids on stability, conformational change, dynamics and protein interactions are revealed. As such, mass spectrometry is informing membrane embedded efflux pumps (often implicated in antibiotic resistance mechanisms) assembly of membrane protein interfaces (primarily in solute carriers) and receptor mediated signalling pathways (typically of GPCRs). In this lecture I will trace the history of these developments using selected highlights to illustrate progress made to date. Finally, I will describe exciting future developments - soon to be realised...
About the Speaker
Carol Robinson holds the University Chair of Dr. Lee’s Professor of Chemistry and is the first Director of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery at Oxford. She is recognised for establishing mass spectrometry as a viable technology to study the structure, function and interactions of proteins and their complexes. Her collaborations span both academic and industrial laboratories and in 2016, her spin-out company, OMass Technologies, was founded. Now trading as OMass Therapeutics the company uses high-definition native mass spectrometry to develop drug therapies for use in immunologic and genetic disorders. Carol graduated from the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1979 and completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge. She took a career break of eight years to bring up her children and later became the first female Professor of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge (2001-2009). She has held the Dr. Lee’s Chair in Chemistry since 2009 and is Oxford’s first female Professor of Chemistry. Her research has attracted numerous international awards and distinctions. Her most recent awards are: The 2022 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry, The 2022 Louis Jeantet Prize for Medicine, The European Chemistry Gold Medal from the European Chemistry Society (EuChemS), The Othmer Gold Medal from the Science History Institute, The Academy Prize from the Royal Academy of Belgium and The Royal Medal A from the Royal Society. Her distinctions include International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2021), Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences (2017), Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2013 for her contributions to Science and Industry; she is also a former President of the UK Royal Society of Chemistry.
Image Credit: University of Oxford