Talk in the context of the tenure-procedure (Status Assessment).
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Kathrin Lang, Technische Universität München, Dept. of Chemistry, Synthetic Biochemistry, TUM-IAS Rudolf Mößbauer Tenure Track Fellow
Title: "Expanding the Genetic Code – Chemistry in Living Systems"
Date: Thursday, July 14, 2016
Time: 14:30
Location: Ivar-Ugi-Hörsaal (CH 22210), Dept. Chemie, Lichtenbergstr. 4, 85748 Garching
Abstract:
The ability to incorporate unnatural amino acids with new functionalities site-specifically into proteins enables the study and control of biological processes with a new level of spatial, temporal and molecular precision. Emerging areas with enormous potential consist in the site-specific incorporation of unnatural amino acids bearing functional groups that are inert under physiological conditions but undergo very selective reactions within living cells upon a certain trigger. Within this talk, our efforts for establishing tools for the site-specific labelling and crosslinking of proteins are discussed. These tools will allow us to visualize proteins and modulate their enzymatic activity in live cells and to study protein-protein interactions as well as posttranslational modifications. We envision that the approaches and technologies to expand the chemical repertoire of proteins by incorporating unnatural amino acids and developing new in vivo chemistries will enable the study of biological processes that are difficult or impossible to address by more classical methods.