Date: 31July 2025 (Friday)
Time: 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Venue: Seminar Room 2-3, G/F, Laboratory Block, 21 Sassoon Road

Professor Reinhard Faessler studied Medicine at the University of Innsbruck, specialized in General Medicine and Pathology and obtained a postdoctoral education in the laboratory of Rudolf Jaenisch at the Whitehead Institute, Cambridge, USA. After the postdoc, he established his research group at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, was recruited as Professor and Chair of Department of Experimental Pathology to Lund University and in 2001 as Director to the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry. Professor Reinhard Faessler is using an interdisciplinary approach to study integrin-mediated cell adhesion signaling.

Integrins are α/β heterodimeric, type I transmembrane proteins. They mediate cell-to-cell and cell-to-extracellular matrix interactions. A hallmark of integrins is that ligand binding requires an activation step that is associated with profound conformational changes that affect the entire molecule including the separation of the α/β transmembrane domains (TMDs). We discovered that the α/β-integrin TMDs have an additional key function by facilitating the α/β-ectodomain head association and folding in the endoplasmic reticulum. I will discuss how we discovered the essential integrin TMD function and how it links to disease.

All are welcome.