November 24
@
12:00 PM
–
1:00 PM
Fantastic forces and where to find them
Julien Berro, PhD
Associate Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, and of Cell Biology
School of Medicine
Yale University
Abstract:
Mechanical forces are central to countless biological processes in health and disease. However, despite their ubiquity and importance in cellular processes, our understanding of biomechanical forces lags far behind our understanding of the underlying biochemistry. Studying forces within cells is difficult because tools and approaches to directly probe forces at the molecular level are scarce, difficult to use or have limited applications. In this seminar, I will present approaches based on quantitative microscopy, mathematical modeling and molecular force sensor engineering that my lab has developed to readily measure biophysical quantities so far impossible or difficult to measure in vivo. Using clathrin-mediated endocytosis as a model system, I will show how these methods have uncovered new molecular mechanisms of force production, force transmission and force sensing by the actin cytoskeleton.
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