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SEMINAR SPEAKER: Dr. Patricia Clark, University of Notre Dame
TITLE: “Protein folding success depends on the direction and speed of polypeptide chain appearance”
ABSTRACT: Cells contain thousands of different proteins, each of which must fold into a specific 3D structure in order to carry out its crucial function. The failure of a protein to fold to its functional structure is the molecular basis of many human diseases. Every protein in every cell is synthesized in a specific direction, which means that one end of the protein chain can start folding before the other. Currently, we have little understanding of how folding during directional appearance impacts the success of protein folding. My lab has recently developed a new experimental approach that has revealed that the directional appearance of proteins can significantly affect folding mechanisms.
BIO: Patricia L. Clark is the John Cardinal O’Hara, C.S.C., Professor of Biophysics and concurrent Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, where she also serves as Associate Vice President for Research. Clark received her B.S. (1991) in chemistry from Georgia Institute of Technology and Ph.D. (1997) in molecular biophysics from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Prior to moving to Notre Dame in 2001, Clark was a National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Research Service Award postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At Notre Dame, Clark has built a research program that uses biophysical, biochemical, computational, genetic and other tools to investigate how proteins fold correctly and avoid misfolding, aggregation and degradation by cellular proteases. Her work has contributed significantly to our understanding of co-translational protein folding and the concomitant secretion and folding of virulence proteins from Gram-negative bacterial pathogens. Clark is an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a Kavli Fellow, and has received the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the Protein Society’s Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award, the Biophysical Society’s Michael and Kate Bárány Award, a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, and a Medical Research Award from the W.M. Keck Foundation. She has twice received Notre Dame’s Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Clark holds one patent. As Associate Vice President for Research, Clark leads all aspects of research development at Notre Dame.
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