Tuesday, December 5, 3:30 PM, BPB 130
Dr. Michael Church, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Stowers Institute for Medical Research
Host: Stacey Hanlon
Regulating metabolism through control of gene expression
Summary: Protein complexes that affect DNA accessibility by sliding/evicting nucleosomes are conserved throughout Eukarya, and play an important role in gene regulation. In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, one such complex, Swi-Snf, is a well-known activator of gene transcription. However, swi/snf mutants display elevated levels of metabolic gene transcription in contrast to its known role as an activator. We aimed to discover the reason for this phenomenon, and further investigate the relationship between metabolism, chromatin, and the proteins that influence both.
Bio: Dr. Church received both his B.A. and Ph.D. from the Department of Microbiology at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, after which he spent a short time working as an industrial scientist. Church moved to Kansas City, Missouri in 2017 to work as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the lab of Jerry Workman, Ph.D. at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. He is interested in how metabolism affects proteins that regulate gene expression, and vice versa.