The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Other Tri-Institutional Events

Speaker(s)

Akanksha Thawani, Ph.D., Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Berkeley

Speaker bio(s)

Dr. Thawani’s research focuses on understanding how mobile genetic elements shape our genomes and its defenses. Retrotransposons make up a family of mobile elements that copy-and-paste themselves and dominate the genomes of multicellular eukaryotes. Despite their abundance, the mechanisms that drive retrotransposon spread have remained a mystery due to challenges in purification and biochemical characterization. Dr. Thawani will present her efforts to unravel the molecular and structural basis of human LINE-1 retrotransposon spread, the gene responsible for an astonishing one-third of the human genome. Retrotransposons hold the key to developing programmable transgene insertion technologies that do not rely on donor DNA, offering a new and safer approach for gene therapy. Dr. Thawani will further present recent cryo-EM structures that allow us to understand how site-specific retrotransposons from vertebrate species mobilize and describe ongoing efforts to engineer vertebrate retrotransposons for transgene insertion technology.

Open to

Public

Host

John Petrini

Reception

Refreshments, 10:45 a.m.

Phone

(646) 888-3714

Sponsor

Niesha Hunte
(646) 888-3713
Hunten@mskcc.org