CRISPR-Cas, Acquired Immunity in Prokaryotes

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Luciano Marraffini, Ph.D., associate professor and head, Laboratory of Bacteriology, The Rockefeller University

Speaker bio(s)

Clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) loci and their associated (Cas) proteins provide acquired immunity against viral and plasmid infection in prokaryotes. The CRISPR-Cas immune response can be divided into two phases. Upon infection, short phage or plasmid sequences known as spacers integrate between CRISPR repeats. This is known as the immunization stage. During the second phase, the targeting phase, spacers are transcribed into small RNA guides that identify the viral or plasmid targets of CRISPR immunity. The CRISPR RNA guides are loaded into Cas nucleases and direct them to complementary sequences in the invading genome. Cleavage of the target genome results in the end of the infection. Dr. Marraffini will discuss recent work in his lab which shows how these two phases of the CRISPR-Cas immune response are fundamentally linked.

Dr. Marraffini received an undergraduate degree from the University of Rosario, in his native Argentina, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where he studied bacterial pathogenesis in the laboratory of Olaf Schneewind. He was a postdoctoral investigator at Northwestern University before joining the Rockefeller faculty in 2010. A Rita Allen Scholar and a Searle Scholar, Dr. Marraffini has also received an RNA Society Award, an Irma T. Hirschl/Monique Weill-Caulier Trusts Career Scientist Award, the Earl and Thressa Stadtman Scholar Award from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the Hans Sigrist Prize from the University of Bern. He was recently named a recipient of the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research.

Open to

Public

Host

Michel C. Nussenzweig, M.D., Ph.D.

Reception

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

Contact

Justin Sloboda

Phone

(212) 327-7785

Sponsor

Justin Sloboda
(212) 327-7785
jsloboda@rockefeller.edu

Readings

http://librarynews.rockefeller.edu/?p=4744