The Biology Seminar Series welcomes Dr. Bede Portz, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher in Dr. James Shorter’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. His virtual seminar is titled, RNA as a Nucleator and Regulator of Biomolecular Condensates. 

The event will be hosted by Dr. Carlos A. Castañeda from Syracuse University.

About the Speaker: “I did my PhD studies with Dr. David Gilmour, in the Center for Eukaryotic Gene Regulation in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State. There I studied RNA polymerase II using a combination of genetics, biochemistry and biophysical methods. This led to an interest in disordered proteins, and the self-assembly of proteins through liquid-liquid phase separation. I am currently a postdoctoral fellow, supported the BrightFocus foundation, in the laboratory of Dr. James Shorter at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Here, I study how RNA can modulate the phase separation and aggregation of the neurodegenerative disease protein, TDP-43. I also am developing ‘bait RNAs’ –short oligonucleotides that prevent TDP-43 aggregation, as well as studying how RNAs can themselves undergo phase transitions in the absence of proteins.”

For Zoom link, please email Nichole Miller nlklossn@syr.edu.