Chemistry Biology of Membrane Proteins and Lipids

by Dr. Jeet Kalia (National Institutes of Health, USA)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 from 14:30 to 15:30 (Asia/Kolkata)
at Colaba Campus ( AG-80 )

TIFR, Colaba Mumbai 400005

Description

I aspire to lead an innovative interdisciplinary research program at the interface of chemistry and biology. The major underlying philosophy of my future research plan is to combine my Ph.D. training in synthetic organic chemistry and chemical biology with my postdoctoral training in electrophysiology and ion channel biology to answer fundamental questions in membrane protein and lipid biology. I will discuss these research goals and some collaborative ideas thereof, in my talk. A major focus of my research goals is on lipids—biomolecules that are poorly understood as compared to other biomolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids. A major hindrance in the progress of lipid biology has been the lack of robust and powerful tools to study lipids in vivo. To overcome this obstacle, I propose to develop novel chemical biology-based methods for studying lipids. These methods will involve introduction of non-natural lipids in cells that effectively mimic natural lipids but have elaborated function. In my talk, I will outline this approach and describe how I aim to employ it to shed light on several aspects of lipid biology, specially focusing on delineating the role of membrane lipids in the function of membrane proteins such as ion channels. Another focus of my future research is to develop guanidine‑based inhibitors of voltage-gated potassium channels for treating multiple sclerosis and neuromuscular disorders such as botulism and Lambert-Eaton syndrome. This goal is motivated by the findings of my postdoctoral work that resulted in the elucidation of the mechanism by which the classical drug, guanidine, inhibits voltage‑gated potassium channels. I will discuss the approaches I plan to undertake to design, synthesize, and test novel guanidine compounds towards this goal.