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VIDEO: Bede Portz on An Introduction to Biomolecular Condensates in Disease and to Dewpoint Therapeutics

Author
Alex Milot

Senior Research Associate, Dewpoint Therapeutics

Type Kitchen Table TalkFor Beginners
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Keywords

It was fantastic to have avid condensate scientist from Dewpoint, Bede Portz, give a  Kitchen Table Talk about the basics for the condensate community and the first class of Dewpoint interns on June 8.  Bede received his PhD training at Penn State with David Gilmore where he studied RNA polymerase II and became obsessed with the biological and pathological implications surrounding condensates. His postdoc fellowship was with the BrightFocus Foundation at the University of Pennsylvania in James Shorter’s lab, where he worked on developing therapeutic RNAs to combat aberrant phase transitions and neurodegenerative diseases with noncoding RNA condensation. Now a Senior Scientist at Dewpoint, Bede demonstrates an incredible passion for science, in general, and specifically condensates, as you’ll see in his video below. 

You can find links to all of Bede’s references further below; many of the best reviews are also listed in the ‘For Beginners‘ section of the site. If you’d like to have a conversation with Bede about condensates, feel free to email him at bportz@dewpointx.com

Bede Portz on An Introduction to Biomolecular Condensates in Disease and to Dewpoint Therapeutics


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TRANSCRIPT

Alex Milot (00:01):
Hi, everyone. Thanks for coming. I have the pleasure of introducing my boss and critical member of oncology, Dr. Bede Portz. Bede received his PhD training in the Center for Eukaryotic Gene Regulation at Penn State with David Gilmore for a studied RNA polymerase II and became obsessed with the biological and pathological implications surrounding condensates. His postdoc fellowship was with the BrightFocus Foundation at the University of Pennsylvania in James Shorter’s lab, where he worked on developing therapeutic RNAs to combat aberrant phase transitions and neurodegenerative diseases with noncoding RNA condensation. He demonstrates an incredible passion for science in general, and specifically condensates and became a condensate expert to take this passion to new heights. So if you ever want to talk to someone about condensates, I recommend talking to Bede. He loves them as much as he loves his man bun, which we all absolutely adore. And with that, I’m going to let Bede give his talk.

Bede Portz (01:07):
Okay. Thanks, Alex. If you got something right, it is that I am enthusiastic about this topic, which is both condensates and Dewpoint, this place that we are together building. So for the aficionados, this might be an unseasoned dish, but the thrust of this talk is really going to be introductory. And in the audience here in Dewpoint are our first crop of interns. So welcome. And what I hope is that this talk gets you enthusiastic, but also lowers the activation energy to further explore the literature. So I’m going to talk about… I was tasked with two things. So talking about condensates and talking about Dewpoint, and each of these things transcends what could be covered in 45 minutes. The scope of this field has exploded in the last decade and indeed the scope of Dewpoint across multiple therapeutic areas and partnerships and disease programs also transcends what could really be covered in 45 minutes.

Bede Portz (02:13):
But I’m going to try to focus this on those concepts that most captivated my attention when I was new to this field. So on my slides to that end are some references that I have found particularly interesting. And this is an image from one of them and it depicts what is becoming an increasingly understood phenomenon in biology. And that is that cells are organized in via both membrane encompassed organelles, but also membraneless organelles, which have been come to be known as biomolecular condensates. So these things are widespread and this image depicts some of the more well-characterized condensates, and these are non-stoichiometric assemblies of proteins and nucleic acids…

REFERENCES

1) Gomes and Shorter. JBC (2019)
2) Portz, Lee and Shorter, TiBS (2021)

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