Student Hosted Colloquia: Professor Amy Palmer, University of Colorado Boulder
Student Hosted Colloquia: Professor Amy Palmer, University of Colorado Boulder (Host: Matias Horst)
About the Seminar
"Illuminating the biochemistry of zinc and RNA in living cells"
The Palmer lab develops fluorescent tools to illuminate the biochemistry of living cells, specifically the roles of metal ions such as zinc and biomolecules such as RNA. There are over two thousand proteins encoded by the human genome that are predicted to bind zinc, where zinc binding is essential for function. Given the importance of Zn2+ in cell biology and human health, it is astounding that we still don’t understand the mechanisms of how Zn2+ levels and dynamics impact basic cellular functions and give rise to disease. This talk will focus on our discoveries that Zn2+ dynamics influence fundamental cellular processes such as gene expression, interactions between transcription factors and chromatin at the single molecule level, and the proliferation-quiescence decision in the mammalian cell cycle. I will also discuss our ongoing efforts to develop a fluorescent tool for illuminating RNA called Riboglow. Recently, we developed a new platform for tagging mRNA and ncRNA with fluorophores to track them in live cells. This highly modular ‘Riboglow’ platform leverages different color fluorescent dyes, linkers and riboswitch RNA tags to elicit fluorescent turn-on upon binding RNA.
About the Speaker
Amy E. Palmer received her B.A. cum laude from Dartmouth College (1994) where she worked with Karen E. Wetterhahn on the toxicity of chromium compounds. She received her PhD in Chemistry from Stanford University (2001), under the direction of Edward I. Solomon, focusing on spectroscopic methods to characterize the electronic and geometric structure and function of multi-copper oxidases. She also obtained a Masters degree in Science Education from Stanford. Dr. Palmer was an F32 NIH-postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Nobel laureate Roger Y. Tsien at the University of California San Diego (2001-2005), where she developed a family of genetically encoded fluorescent calcium sensors and used them to examine localized calcium signaling in mammalian cells. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and BioFrontiers Institute, where she has been since 2005. The Palmer lab develops new technologies to interrogate signaling cascades in cells to understand how the actions of specific proteins, molecules, and ions contribute to cellular function. The Palmer Lab has developed: fluorescent sensors for metal ions to probe metal distribution, dynamics and signaling in living cells; fluorescent tools for imaging host-pathogen interactions; optically integrated microfluidics to characterize and optimize fluorescent probes, and probe/aptamer platforms to tagging and tracking RNA in living cells. Professor Palmer is also passionate about teaching and has engaged in curriculum reform and course development in General Chemistry and Physical Chemistry. These efforts focus on engaging students in active learning and promoting critical thinking and analytical reasoning. Professor Palmer strongly values mentoring, and has trained 11 postdocs, 20 graduate students and 37 undergraduates. Professor Palmer is the recipient of a Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship (2010, Chemistry), NSF CAREER award (2010), Ed Stiefel Young Investigator Award in Biological Inorganic Chemistry (2010), NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (2014), Beckman Center Award for Light Sheet Microscopy and Data Science (2021). She is on the editorial board of Biophysical Journal.
Photo by Patrick Campbell/University of Colorado.