Organic Chemistry Seminar: Professor Yamuna Krishnan, University of Chicago

Organic Chemistry Seminar: Professor Yamuna Krishnan, University of Chicago
Date
Fri May 27th 2022, 4:00 - 5:00pm
Location
Sapp Center Auditorium

Organic Chemistry Seminar: Professor Yamuna Krishnan, University of Chicago (Host: Steven Banik)

**This seminar is available for in-person attendance.**

"Quantitative chemical imaging of organelles"

About the Seminar

The chemical milieu within an organelle has been evolutionarily optimized to enable the biochemistry that occurs within. My lab studies how organelle function impacts cell function by quantitatively mapping chemicals within organelles using a DNA-based imaging technology. Strands of DNA can form molecularly precise assemblies, referred to as DNA nanodevices. Our DNA nanodevices are chemically responsive, fluorescent probes (1). I will discuss how we can program these probes to interact with cells in targeted ways, get transported to specific organelles and thereby reveal the chemical composition of organelles (2-4). I will recount one example of how we solved a thirty-year problem in molecular sensing by mapping Ca2+ in acidic organelles and how that led to us identifying how Ca2+ is imported into human lysosomes (2,5).

References:

1.     Chakraborty, K., et. al. Nucleic acid based nanodevices in biological imaging. Ann. Rev. Biochem, 2016, 85, 349-373.

2.     Narayanaswamy, N. et. al. A pH-correctable, DNA-based fluorescent reporter for organellar Calcium. Nature Methods, 2019, 16, 95-102.

3.     Thekkan, S. et al. A DNA-based fluorescent reporter maps HOCl production in the maturing phagosome. Nature. Chem. Biol. 2019, in press.

4.     Leung, K., et al. A DNA nanomachine chemically resolves lysosomes in live cells. Nature Nanotechnology, 2019, 14, 176-183.

5.     Saminathan A., et al. A DNA-based voltmeter for organelles. Nature Nanotechnology, 2021, 16, 96-103.

About the Speaker

Yamuna Krishnan is a professor at the Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago since August 2014. She won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for science and technology, in the year 2013 in the Chemical Sciences, the Infosys Prize for Physical Sciences in 2017 and the Sun Pharma Foundation Award for Basic Medical Research in 2020.

Her current research interests are in the areas related to structure and dynamics of nucleic acids, nucleic acid nanotechnology, cellular and subcellular technologies. Her lab tries to understand the functions from DNA beyond that of its traditional role as the genetic material. They develop versatile, chemical imaging technology using self-assembled DNA nanostructures to quantitatively image second messengers in real time, in living cells and genetic model organisms.