Announcement of the 9th Waseda IARBD seminar “Synthetic Biological Approach to Dynamic Protein Assembly/Disassembly in situ”
Hideki Nakamura, Associate Professor, Kyoto University
The 9th seminar of the Waseda IARBD seminar series was a lecture by Dr. Hideki Nakamura, Associate Professor at Kyoto University, Japan. The lecture title was “Synthetic biological approach to dynamic protein assembly/disassembly in situ”.
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Date : |
12 May, 2022 |
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Time : |
17:00-18:00 (Japan Standard Time) |
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Venue : |
Webinar, Zoom (You will know the link after your registration.) |
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Lecturer : |
Dr. Hideki Nakamura Associate Professor, Hakubi Center / School of Engineering, Kyoto University |
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Title : |
“Synthetic biological approach to dynamic protein assembly/disassembly in situ” |
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Registration Fee : |
Free |
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Language : |
English |
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Registration : |
Please register in the following link: https://forms.gle/JV5vEYXPGBeWKtTx5 |
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Closing Date : |
10 May, 2022 |
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Contact : |
IARBD-Office: IARBD-office@list.waseda.jp |
Biography
Dr. Hideki Nakamura received a PhD in Science from Tokyo University, majoring in nonlinear physics. He then switched to the field of molecular biology, doing his postdoc in RIKEN BSI (currently known as CBS). After the postdoc, he became an assistant professor in Professor Takafumi Inoue’s lab at Waseda University from 2011 to 2014, focusing on quantifying protein diffusion dynamics inside living cells using fluorescence imaging techniques. He then studied abroad as a postdoc at The Johns Hopkins University, where he started his career as a synthetic biologist. He came back to Japan as an assistant professor at Kyoto University in 2019. From 2021, he is an associate professor at Hakubi Center, Kyoto University.
Abstract
Synthetic biology is a relatively new branch of science that aims at understanding life by creating new biological systems, or by redesigning conventional biological systems. The field is bearing much fruit in terms of technological advances, including genome editing tools and optogenetics. These technologies have offered novel perspectives in related research fields, boosting our understanding of life.
Among technologies in the field, I have been taking advantage of inducible dimerization paradigms, in which association between two specific proteins can be manipulated from distance by chemical or optical stimulus. Based on the paradigms, I recently developed several tools that can manipulate dynamic protein assembly and/or disassembly inside living cells.
Dynamic assembly of biomolecules has attracted much attention in recent biological researches. Studies revealed novel intracellular structures that are formed by dynamic assembly of multiple proteins and nucleic acids, governed by intriguing mechanism of phase transition/separation. These structures are involved in almost all kinds of essential biological processes including transcription, translation, stress response, and many diseases such as neurodegenerative diseases.
In the seminar, I will provide brief overview of synthetic biology, followed by introduction of the tools I developed. Recent trends in the field of dynamic assembly of biomolecules, as well as future perspectives and promises of synthetic biology approaches will also be summarized.
References
[1] Nakamura H, Lee A-A, et al., Intracellular production of hydrogels and synthetic RNA granules by multivalent molecular interactions. Nat. Mater. (2018).
[2] Nakamura H, DeRose R, Inoue T, Harnessing biomolecular condensates in living cells. J. Biochem. (2019).
[3] Nakamura H, et al., ActuAtor, a molecular tool for generating force in living cells: Controlled deformation of intracellular structures. bioRiv (submitted).
Organized by the Institute for Advanced Research of Bioscience Dynamics (IARBD)