UT Host: Dr. Michael Best

Speaker: Dr. Carsten Schultz

Professor & Chair Physiology and Pharmacology Department

Oregon Health & State University

Title: "Lipid Tools, Lipid Targets, Lipid Functions"

Abstract: To better understand signaling networks, molecular tools are needed to visualize and manipulate signaling networks in a non-invasive fashion. In this lecture, I will focus on synthetic derivatives of lipids such as phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate (PIP3) and sphingosine. I will demonstrate how phosphoinositide tools are instrumental in the discovery of phenomena such as receptor internalization. Further, I will present results that demonstrate the occurrence of phosphoinositides in the nucleus and how these lipids change dramatically during mitosis. Finally, I will present the regulation of autophagy by sphingosine. These lipid-related discoveries potentially help to understand how late stage cancer cells escape growth factor receptor destruction and how cell stress develops in cells suffering from the lipid storage disease Niemann-Pick C.

Bio: Carsten Schultz studied chemistry in Germany. After his PhD he joined the lab of Roger Tsien at UC San Diego. Carsten started his own lab back in Bremen Germany and in 2000 became a group leader at the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Physiology. In 2001, he moved to the EMBL in Heidelberg where he was granted tenure in 2008. The Schultz Group develops tools for imaging and manipulating cellular enzyme activities in intact cells and tissues with a particular emphasis on lipid signaling. The group is mainly interested in visualizing entire signaling networks and in chemical and optical methods for manipulating cells in a disease context. The latter includes cancer, diabetes and the hereditary disease cystic fibrosis.