The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Hidde Ploegh, Ph.D., professor of biology and member, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research

Speaker bio(s)

Dr. Ploegh's lab has applied a set of new technologies to study host pathogen-interactions. These include the use of somatic cell nuclear transfer to obtain mouse models with B or T cells of defined specificity. In the case of a flu-specific B cell mouse, the results shed new light on the interactions of pathogen-specific B cells with the virus they recognize. Similar models have also proven useful in addressing questions of antigen valency as a prerequisite for full B cell activation. In the course of this work, the lab makes use of protein modification strategies that exploit bacterial sortases as a versatile tool to introduce labels into proteins where standard chemical methods fail because of a lack of selectivity, and where fusions with GFP or similar are not always compatible with retention of function of the fusion product. Through Cas9/CRISPR genome editing in the germline of mice, highly selective modification of cells that bear the appropriate recognition motifs may be obtained. Dr. Ploegh's group has begun to make extensive use of camelid single domain antibodies, both to perturb cellular function and to facilitate biochemical analysis more generally, again in the context of host-pathogen interactions.

Dr. Ploegh obtained his Ph.D. from Leiden University in the Netherlands in 1981. He held positions in Germany and the Netherlands before joining the faculty of MIT as full professor in 1992. In 1997 he became the incumbent of the Mallinckrodt Professorship in Immunopathology at Harvard Medical School and was the director of the graduate program in immunology. He was recruited back to MIT in 2005, where he has been at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Dr. Ploegh is the recipient of the Havinga Medal from Leiden University, the American Association of Immunologists Career Achievement Award and an NIH Pioneer Award, among other honors.

Open to

Public

Reception

Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge

Contact

Alena Powell

Phone

(212) 327-7745

Sponsor

Alena Powell
(212) 327-7745
apowell@rockefeller.edu

Readings

http://librarynews.rockefeller.edu/?p=3410