Professor Horst Vogel
Laboratory of Physical Chemistry
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de
Lausanne, Switzerland

Friday, August 19, 2011
10:00 am (CT)
3269 Beckman Institute

Abstract

Molecular interactions of odorants with their olfactory receptors (ORs) are of central importance for the ability of the mammalian olfactory system to detect and discriminate a vast variety of odors with a limited set of receptors. How a particular OR binds and distinguishes different odorant molecules remains largely unknown on a structural basis. I will give an overview on present models of OR mediated signaling and our approach to yield novel insights on the structure of ORs.