Physiology Seminar TODAY! Dr. Chi-Lun Chang, Assistant Professor, St. Jude – May 29th

Will Present His Seminar Titled:

"The Logistics of Fat: interrogating lipid droplet-organelle communication"

TODAY! MAY 29th - 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM
Cancer Research Building Auditorium
19 S. Manassas St, Room 114
Refreshments will be provided.

Talk Preview:

I will be discussing our lab's recent work of (i) developing a tool kit for visualization and enhancing lipid droplet-organelle contact sites and (ii) interrogating the roles of a mitochondrial protein, OPA1, on lipid droplets.

Introduction:

I am a cell biologist with long-lasting research interest in the dynamic spatial organization of inter-organelle logistic network, an essential infrastructure for cells to operate as integrated units to support various metabolic demands in a human body. My lab is committed to develop a cohesive, interdisciplinary research program with 1) advanced high content, high-resolution imaging tools, 2) complimentary, quantitative readouts via orthogonal approaches such as omics analyses, 3) acute perturbation to the system via synthetic and chemical tools, and 4) genome wide CRISPR screens to gain mechanistic insights into outstanding and challenging questions in inter-organelle logistics. Specifically, we are currently interrogating 1) how lipid droplet-organelle contact sites are regulated during metabolic switch and 2) how the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and Golgi communication to accommodate protein trafficking and homeostasis. We are collaborating with microscopists, tool builders, geneticists, structural biologists, and biostatisticians to innovatively interrogate these issues at molecular, cellular, and system levels. In the longer term, I hope my work will provide actionable insight into mechanisms that underlie neurological, metabolic, and developmental diseases, of which pathogenesis is associated with impaired inter-organelle logistics.