The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Evnin Chemical and Structural Biology Seminar Series

Speaker(s)

Vincent Tagliabracci, Ph.D., Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Michael L. Rosenberg Scholar in Medical Research; Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Biology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Speaker bio(s)

Abstract: The Tagliabracci laboratory investigates the unconventional functions of uncharacterized and understudied protein kinases and pseudokinases. Over the past decade, they have uncovered unexpected biochemical activities within this family, including AMPylation, polyglutamylation, and viral mRNA capping. Their approach combines bioinformatic identification of atypical family members with biochemical, structural, and mass spectrometry–based analyses to uncover functions and enzymatic activities that could not have been predicted a priori.

While traditional sequence-based bioinformatics has been highly effective in identifying new kinase families, integrating AI-driven structural prediction tools such as AlphaFold into our experimental pipeline has been transformative. In this lecture, Dr. Tagliabracci will describe two recent discoveries from my laboratory that identify orphan kinases in the ether lipid and polyisoprenoid salvage pathways.

Open to

Tri-Institutional