Title: From single molecules to cellular decision making: connecting the scales using mechanical force
Abstract:
In this lecture, I will describe our e^ort to understand how the mechanical responses of single molecules contribute to important cell fate decision, first in the nucleus where DNA resides and then on the cell membrane. We are revealing unusual mechanical properties of DNA that the evolution has utilized throughout the history of life on earth. We then repurpose the double helical structure of DNA to probe how the cells sense their mechanical environments.
Biography:
Dr. Taekjip Ha is George D. Yancopoulos Professor of Pediatrics in honor Frederick W. Alt at Harvard Medical School and senior investigator of Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. He has been an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 2005. He received a bachelor’s in physics from Seoul National University in 1990 and Physics PhD from University of California at Berkeley in 1996. After postdoctoral training at Stanford, he was a Physics professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2000-2015), where he co-directed an NSF Physics Frontier Center, and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University (2015-2023). He is a member of the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Medicine, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received Ho-Am Prize in Science (2011), Kazuhito Kinosita Award in single molecule biophysics (2018) and Barany Award for young investigators (2007). He was named Searle Scholar (2001) and Sloan Fellow (2003). He has served on Editorial Boards for Science (2011- present), Cell (2009-2020) and eLife (2014-2020). He co-chaired the National Academies committee on Toward Sequencing and Mapping of RNA Modifications (2022-2024). He served as President of the Biophysical Society (2023-2024).
Dr. Ha’s current research theme is “genome maintenance at higher resolution”. “Higher resolution” here refers to advances his team pioneered in multiple axes, including time resolution, spatial resolution, single molecule and single cell resolution, and single base pair resolution. His biological focus is genome maintenance, i.e. how the genome is accurately duplicated and repaired for preserving genomic integrity. He advanced CRISPR-based tools in terms of time and space resolution as well as multiplexing and obtained novel insights about repair of CRISPR-generated DNA damage. Because genome maintenance occurs in the context of chromatin and 3D genome, and in the presence of ongoing nuclear processes such as transcription and epigenetic regulation, his team has also been studying how DNA sequences and modifications as well as histone modifications can act directly through changes in biophysical properties of DNA and chromatinsuch as DNA flexibility and nucleosome stability and condensability. Finally, he used biophysical properties of DNA to develop single molecule force sensors and determined the single molecule force loading rate in cells.
LOCATION:Pfizer Lecture Hall STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20251211T211500Z DTEND:20251211T224500Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR