Speaker: Bruce Goode, Professor of Biology, Brandeis University

Title: Deconstructing actin network dynamics: from living cells to single molecule analysis

Research Summary: Research in the Goode lab focuses on defining the biochemical and cellular mechanisms of actin and microtubule cytoskeleton rearrangements that drive cell morphogenesis, motility, endocytosis, and intracellular transport. To tackle these problems, we take a multi-disciplinary ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’ approach, combining forward and reverse genetics, biochemistry, structural biology, cell imaging, and multi-wavelength single molecule TIRF microscopy. From 2000-2010, our primary in vivo discovery system was the budding yeast S. cerevisiae; however, since then we have made a major transition, and about half of the lab currently studies cytoskeletal dynamics in mammalian cells. Our research interests lie in three areas: 1) Coordination of microtubule and actin polymer dynamics, 2) Actin filament disassembly & remodeling, and 3) Cellular actin assembly mechanisms. Our long-range goal is to define in molecular detail the multi-component mechanisms that underlie these critical steps in cytoskeletal remodeling, which govern cell shape, organization, and dynamics."

Host: Moe Gupta

Please join us for refreshments at 3:45 p.m. outside Room 1414 in the Molecular Biology Building.