Professor S. Ramaswamy
Professor and Founding Dean
Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine
CEO, Center for Cellular and Molecular Platforms
National Center for Biological Sciences, India

Date: Tuesday, 4-December-2018
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Venue: Seminar Room 5, LG1/F, Laboratory Block
Faculty of Medicine Building
21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

Summary:
For a number of years X-ray crystallography has been the method to determine structures of proteins at high resolution. Majority of the structures in the PDB were determined by X-ray crystallography. Recent developments in electron cryo-microscopy has allowed structure determination at high resolutions by this technique. The interests in Professor Ramaswamy’s laboratory is in understanding enzyme structure and function. In the last year they have determined the structure of the multi-enzyme complex PaaZ that catalyzes the crucial ring opening reaction in the path way of degradation of phenyl acetic acid and the structure of Dimethyl-formamidase by single particle cry-electron microscopy. The structure of PaaZ reveals an architecture where substrate transfer happens between enzymes by electrostatic anchoring. The structure of DMFase reveals a novel iron site.

Professor Ramaswamy will also present in short their work on bacterial Sialic acid uptake and catabolism, specially the structure of the SSS-type transporter for Sialic acid in gram negative bacteria.

ALL ARE WELCOME