Physical Chemistry Seminar: Dr. Matthew King, Washington University in St. Louis
Credit: WashU McKelvey engineering
About the Seminar
Organize to Optimize: How physicochemical microenvironments in the nucleus control biochemical reactions
Matt King’s research explores how cells organize and optimize biochemical reactions. During his postdoc, he developed a method that combines fluorescent microscopy and analytical chemistry tools to measure local physicochemical properties in living cells. This enabled the discovery that nuclear bodies, despite lacking a membrane, maintain a unique pH. This phenomenon depends on intrinsically disordered protein regions, which selectively partition or exclude protons. This work points to a new hypothesis at the nexus of chemistry and cell biology: that nuclear bodies have developed highly specialized local pH, salt, and metabolite concentrations that collectively ensure maximum efficiency of the biochemical reactions that occur within them.
About the Speaker
Matt King’s research explores how cells organize and optimize biochemical reactions. During his postdoc, he developed a method that combines fluorescent microscopy and analytical chemistry tools to measure local physicochemical properties in living cells. This enabled the discovery that nuclear bodies, despite lacking a membrane, maintain a unique pH. This phenomenon depends on intrinsically disordered protein regions, which selectively partition or exclude protons. This work points to a new hypothesis at the nexus of chemistry and cell biology: that nuclear bodies have developed highly specialized local pH, salt, and metabolite concentrations that collectively ensure maximum efficiency of the biochemical reactions that occur within them.