Lecture series Translational Bioinformatics and Systems Biomedicine "UNDERSTANDING COMBINATORIAL SIGNAL PROCESSING AND ITS FAILURE DUE TO AGE AND DISEASE" - Prof Yonatan Savir
29/01/2019 16:00 to 29/01/2019 18:00 (Europe/Luxembourg)
--University of Luxembourg - University of Luxembourg, Sciences Humaines Maison des--
Speaker
Prof Yonatan Savir is Asst, Professor, Dept. of Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel.
Abstract
While the ability of biological systems to integrate multiple cues from the environment and coordinate their metabolism and regulatory networks accordingly is a major determinant of their fitness, our understanding of combinatorial integration of multiple inputs is still limited. In this talk, I will first discuss the challenges of deciphering combinatorial response and its failure in aged cells using our current work on T-cells and the preimplantation mammalian embryos as examples. I will then focus on the ability of yeast to sense and utilize multiple carbon sources as a model system. We study how yeast responds to hundreds of mixtures of preferred carbon source, glucose, and a less preferred one, galactose. Many of the components of this response, known as catabolite repression, are conserved from yeast to human. We found that, in contrast to the textbook view, instead of merely inhibiting galactose utilization when glucose is above a threshold concentration, individual cells respond to the ratio of glucose and galactose, and based on this ratio determine whether to induce genes involved in galactose metabolism. The decision of when to switch from a preferred to a less-preferred carbon source is akin to a general switching problem between resources, which has long been of interest in biology, management science and operations research. We investigate the optimal switching strategies that can result in a ratio sensing and how they provide a fitness advantage which could have shaped the evolution of this property. https://savir.net.technion.ac.il
schedule
16.00 - 17.00: LECTURE
University of Luxembourg
Maison des Sciences Humaines
11, Porte des Sciences
L-4366 Esch/Alzette
Blackbox room
17.00 - 18.30: 'meet THE SPEAKER'
University of Luxembourg
Maison des Sciences Humaines
11, Porte des Sciences
L-4366 Esch/Alzette
Room N°0.205
Registration required for the 'Meet the Speaker' - send us an email
programme 2019
About the Lecture & Workshop series - TRANSLATIONAL BIOINFORMATICS AND SYSTEMS BIOMEDICINE
The LIH lecture and workshops series in Translational Bioinformatics and Systems Biomedicine, supported by the FNR and jointly organized with the University of Luxembourg, are gathering internationally
This lecture will be followed by a workshop especially dedicated to early-stage researchers.
Attendance to the lecture and workshop are free of charge. Should you be interested in registering for the workshop, please feel free to do so by sending us an email.