Dr. Wonhwa Cho
Department of Chemistry
University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL

Monday, April 14, 2008
3:00 pm (CT)
3269 Beckman Institute

Abstract

Spatial regulation is key to the successful orchestration of cellular protein-protein interactions and networking. Cellular membranes serve as the main sites for protein complexes and networks and the interaction of proteins with various membrane lipids is critical for spatial regulation of protein networking. We have developed a wide variety of computational, structural, biophysical, high-throughput screening, and cell imaging techniques for proteomics-scale identification of new lipid binding proteins and for full understanding of mechanisms by which various cellular lipids specifically and divergently regulate diverse cellular processes, including cell signaling, membrane remodeling and trafficking, cell polarization, and development. New structural and functional insights learned from these studies, including the studies of canonical (PX, PH, C1, C2, ENTH, and BAR domains) and non-canonical (PDZ) lipid binding domains, will be discussed.