Center for Biochemical and Biophysical Studies
Past Seminar Speakers
Spring 2009, "Home Grown Talent"
Narayan Hosmane, Dept. of Chemistry, Boron and Gadolinium Neutron Capture Therapy: New Perspectives in Cancer Treatment
Kui Shen, Dept. of Chemistry. Chemical Probes of Reversible Protein Phosphorylation
Richard Britten, Radiation Oncology, Eastern Virginia Medical School, TBA. Visit associated with NIPTRC Research Advisory Committee
Beth Gaillard, Dept. of Chemistry, Merging Multiphoton Optics and Microfluidics to Advance Stem Cell Therapies
Angela Grippo, Dept., of Psychology, Interactions of psychology and the cardiovascular system: insights from animal models
Jozef Bujarski, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Genetic RNA recombination and RNA interference in brome mosaic bromovirus
Melissa Lenczewski, Dept. of Geology, Geology, geochemistry and microbiology of the Yucatan, Mexico
Thomas Sims, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Protein interactions and gene expression programs in self-compatible and pseudo self-compatible Petunia hybrida
Jim Horn, Dept. of Chemistry, Exploring protein binding and design with minimalist antibodies
Fall 2008 - “Biotherapeutics”
Amanda Haes, University of Iowa, Development of an Innovative Nanoparticle-based Assay for Parkinson's Disease
Steven Swanson, Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Cancer Prevention and Therapy by Down Regulating the Growth Hormone/Insulin-Like Growth Factor I Axis
Daniel Pack, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, (Re) Engineering Gene Delivery: Toward Construction of Artificial Viruses.
Darin Furgeson, Pharmacy, U. Wisconsin-Madison, Eradicating Cancer by Combining Thermoresponsive Polymer-Drug Conjugates and Microwave Thermal Ablation
Brenda Ogle, Department of Biomedical EngineeringUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison, Merging Multiphoton Optics and Microfluidics to Advance Stem Cell Therapies
Dave Lynn, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering University of Wisconsin-Madison, Macromolecular Assemblies for the Delivery of DNA
Lonnie Shea, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern Univ., Gene delivery for regenerative medicine
Robert Dantzer, Departments of Pathology and Animal Sciences, University of Illinois, Cytokines, Sickness and Depression: When the Immune System Subjugates the Brain
Spring 2008 - Immune Recognition
David M. Kranz, Dept. of Biochemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana, "Engineering High-Affinity T cell Receptors for Therapeutic Applications"
Anthony A. Azenabor, Department of Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, "Pathophysiologic Impact of Signaling in Macrophage"
Amy L. Kenter,
Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology,
University of Illinois, Chicago, "Molecular Studies of Immunoglobulin Switch Recombination
Biophysical"
Brian Baker, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, "Conformational changes and molecular dynamics in T cell receptor recognition of peptide/MHC"
George R. Stark, Department of Molecular Genetics, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, "Use of Validation-Based Promoter Insertion to Discover Novel Regulators of Transcription, Transformation and Drug Resistance"
K.T. Shanmugam, Center for Renewable Chemicals & Fuels, Department of Microbiology and Cell Science, University of Florida, Gainesville, "Development of Microbial Biocatalysts for Biofuel Production"
Erin J. Adams, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, University of Chicago, How Does the Immune System Differentiate Self from Non-Self? Clues to Understanding the Molecular Recognition Determinants of Gamma-Delta T Cells"
Richard K. Burt, Division of Immunotherapy, Northwestern College of Medicine, "Stem Cell Transplantation for Autoimmune Diseases"
Fall 2007 - Nucleic Acid ---Protein Interactions
Phoebe A. Rice, Biochemistry and Mol. Biol. U. of Chicago, "DNA bending meets site-specific recombination: the intertwined complex that controls Sin recombinase"
Rick Gourse, Dept. of Bacteriology U. of Wisconsin, "Small molecules, big effects on gene expression: Transmission of metabolic signals directly to RNA polymerase"
Susan A. Martinis, Biochemistry, U. of Illinois, "Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases: Fidelity and RNA Splicing"
John F. Marko, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Dept. of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology, "Micromanipulation study of protein-DNA interactions and chromosome structure"
Gary Judd, Pierce Biotechnology, "Cool Shifts: Super-sensitive, non-isotopic Electrophoretic Mobility Shift Assays (EMSA)"
Alfonso Mondragón, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology, Northwestern University, "Topoisomerase V, a new type I topoisomerase"
Marc S. Wold, Biochemistry, U. of Iowa, "Single-stranded DNA-binding: how atomic interactions lead to complex cell functions "
Michael M. Cox, Biochemistry, U. of Wisconsin, Madison,"Directed Evolution of Radiation Resistance in Bacteria"
Spring 2007 - Protein-Ligand Interactions/Enzyme Active Site Engineering
Shahriar Mobashery, Dept. of Chem. and Biochem.,Notre Dame Univ., "Resistance to b-Lactam Antibiotics in Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)"
Wayne F. Anderson, Mol. Pharm. and Biol. Chemistry, The Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, "The Implications of Structural Genomics - Given an Active Site, What Does it Do?"
Ernesto Fuentes, Dept. of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, "Coupling networks in a PDZ domain protein"
Wei-Jen Tang, Ben May Inst. for Cancer, University of Chicago, "Structural basis of protein-protein interaction revealed by bacterial adenylyl cyclase toxins and human insulin degrading enzyme"
Jun Yin, Dept. of Chemistry, University of Chicago, "Site specific protein labeling and imaging by phosphopantetheinyl transferase"
Huimin Zhao, Dept. of Chemistry, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, "Protein Engineering of Gene Switches and Enzyme Catalysts"
Lee M. Wetzler, Evans Biomedical Research Center, Boston University School of Medicine, "Neisserial Porins as PAMPs: Effect on Antigen Presenting Cells and Use as an Immune Adjuvant"
Dr. Robert J. Keenan, Molecular Biosciences, University of Chicago, "Organophosphate detoxification by an engineered N-acetyltransferase"
Huimin Zhao, Dept. of Chemistry, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, "Protein Engineering of Gene Switches and Enzyme Catalysts"
Ohsuk "Oscar" Kwon, Korea Res. Inst. Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), Daejeon, Korea, "Genome-wide Transcriptional Responses of Escherichia coli to Quinone (Vitamin-K and Coenzyme Q) Deficiency"
Fall 2006 - Progress in Bioinformatics/Genomics/Proteomics
Botany and Plant Pathology
Lilly Hall, Purdue University, "The Plant Cell Wall Gene Network"
Justin C. Fay, Genetics, Washington University, "Evolution of Gene Regulation"
Bruce Lahn, Human Genetics, University of Chicago, "Probing the genetic basis of human brain evolution"
Natalia Maltsev, Bioinformatics Group, Math. and Computer Sci. Div., Argonne National Laboratory, "Grid-based Evolutionary Analysis of Genomes and Metagenomes"
Jacques Ravel, The Institute for Genome Research, "Bacillus Anthracis Multi-Genome Sequence Analysis and Beyond..."
George N. Phillips, Jr., Structural Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Structural Genomics and the Path from Sequence to Function of Proteins"
LLoyd M. Smith, Dept. of Chemistry, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, "Surface Assembly of a Quaternary Nucleic Acid:Protein Complex for Structure-Specific Cleavage"
Eric Jakobsson, Dept. of Biochemistry, U. of I. at Urbana-Champaign, "Heterogeneous Computing for Understanding Biology and Designing Biomimetic Systems"
Spring 2006 - Biomass Utilization
Tom Jeffries, Dept. of Bacteriology, U. Wisconsin-Madison, "Metabolic engineering of yeasts for xylose fermentation"
C. Adinarayana Reddy, Dept. of Micro. and Molecular Genetics, "Lignin Biotransformations and Biotechnological Implications"
Shengde Zhou, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Northern Illinois University, "Genetic engineering of bacterial biocatalysts for production of renewable fuels and chemicals from biomass"
Hans Blaschek, Dept. of Food Science and Human Nutrition, U. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, "The Acetone-Butanol Fermentation Revisited"
Seth Snyder, Argonne National Laboratory, "Bioprocessing R&D to Achieve Energy Independence"
Bruce S. Dien, Fermentation Biotechnology Research, USDA-ARS, "Putting fiber into your car's diet, developing biomass as a renewable source of fuel ethanol"
Rodney Bothast, National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center, "New Technologies in Biofuel Production"
Paul Weimer, Dept. of Bacteriology, U. Wisconsin-Madison, "Cellulose Digestion in the Rumen: All Guts and No Glory"
W. Ford Doolittle, Dept. of Biochemistry and Mol. Biol., Dalhousie Univ., "Population Metagenomics of Extremophilic Bacteria and Archaea"
Fall 2005 - STEM CELL RESEARCH
Dr. Igor
I. Slukvin, Dept. of Pathology and Lab. Med., Wisconsin Nat’l Primate Res. Ctr., Univ. of Wisconsin
"Human Embryonic
Stem Cells as a Model for Hematopoietic Development and a Source of
Hematopoietic Cells for Cellular Therapy"
Dr.
Jackie Bickenbach, Depts. of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Dermatology, and Molecular Biology
University of Iowa, "Multipotency of
Epidermal Stem Cells"
Dr. Phillip A. Newmark, Cell and Structural Biology, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, "Stem Cells, Germ Cells, and Regeneration in Planarians"
Dr. Gregory H. Leno, Dept. of Anat. and Cell Biology, Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa "Chaperone-mediated Nuclear Reprogramming During Development"
Dr. Stephen A. Duncan, Dept. of Cell Biol., Neurobiology and Anatomy, Medical College of Wisconsin "Transcriptional Control of Liver Development"
Dr. Jon S. Odorico, Dept. of Surgery, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, "ES cells to endoderm and pancreatic islets"
Dr.
Carole LaBonne, Dept. of Biochem., Mol. Biol. and Cell Biol., Institute for Neuroscience
Northwestern University, "Development,
Stem Cells and Cancer: A View from
the Crest"
Spring 2005 - RNA IN CONTROL OF GENE EXPRESSION
Dr. Carl C. Correll, Dept. of Biochem. and Molecular Biology, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, " Role of RNA Chaperones During Ribosome Biogenesis"
Dr. Erik J. Sontheimer, Biochem., Molecular and Cell Biology, Northwestern Univ. "RNA Silencing Complex Assembly and Function"
Dr. Tobin R. Sosnick, Dept. of Bioch. and Mol. Biol., University of Chicago, " The folding of complex RNA structures, ribozymes"
Dr. Beverly L. Davidson, Dept. of Internal Medicine, The University of Iowa, " RNAi for Neurodegenerative Diseases"
Dr. Lonnie O. Ingram, Dept. of Micro. and Cell Science, University of Florida, "Re-Engineering Microorganisms as Factories for Renewable Fuels and Chemicals"
Dr. Gary Pielak, University of North Carolina, "In-Cell Protein NMR"
Dr.
Jonathan P. Staley
Dept. Mol. Genetics and Cell Biol., University of Chicago, "Switches
and Motors in the Control of the Spliceosome, a Ribonucleoprotein Machine"