Seminar Series: Anthony Sinai, Ph.D.

Schedule information
Event	Seminar Series: Anthony Sinai, Ph.D.
When	Tuesday, December 11, 2012 from 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Where	Basic Science Building 341 (Library)
Event details
Details	'Autophagy in Toxoplasma gondii: a matter of life and death' Anthony Sinai, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Microbiology Immunology and Molecular Genetics University of Kentucky College of Medicine Summary: The protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii infects roughly a third of the world’s population although symptomatic disease is typically associated with immune suppression. In addition T. gondii infections acquired in utero can cause a spectrum of disease states that can manifest at the time of birth or decades later. The Sinai laboratory is interested in dissecting aspects of differentiation between life cycle stages as well as fundamental cellular processes like autophagy. In our recent work we initiated the first detailed investigations into the autophagic pathways in the parasite. Our studies indicate that in the absence of an apoptotic cascade, autophagy likely represents a primary mechanism of programmed cell death. The evolutionary retention of a PCD pathway in a single cell organism suggests other functions for autophagy that are life sustaining and promoting. Toward this end our recent findings that 2 key mediators of autophagy, the kinase TgATG1 and the autophagy associated protein TgATG8 play central roles in parasite replication and organelle stability/inheritance. As both a death promoting and life sustaining function, autophagy in T. gondii appears to be highly context specific. On a more practical level, the harnessing the death promoting functions of autophagy provide a new avenue for the development of needed anti-parasitic drugs.
Access	» This event has been marked as open to the public.
Contact	Dr. Paul Roepe (roepep@ georgetown.edu)
Sponsors	Department of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology
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