WEHI Structural Biology Special Seminar hosted by Associate Professor Shabih Shakeel

Dr Alessandro Costa

Principal Group Leader – Macromolecular Machines Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, UK

Chromosome Replication. Step by step, atom by atom

Davis Auditorium

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Including Q&A session

DNA replication start sites are licensed for replication when two hexameric ring-shaped motors of the replicative helicase are loaded as an inactive double hexamer around duplex DNA. Activation requires untwisting of the double helix and ejection of one DNA strand from the central channel of each helicase ring. These events are tightly regulated to ensure that replication happens only once per cell cycle. I will describe our efforts to understand replication initiation, by combining biochemical reconstitution and cryo-electron microscopy.

Alessandro Costa studied Biotechnology at the University of Padova and received his PhD from Imperial College London in 2008, having studied archaeal helicases under the supervision of Silvia Onesti. He then moved to Oxford University to investigate archaeal chromosome replication and joined UC Berkeley as an EMBO fellowto work with James Berger. In 2012, he established his own group at the CRUK Clare Hall Laboratories and later moved to the Francis Crick Institute in London. His lab studies the molecular mechanism of chromosome replication, by combining biochemical reconstitution and structural cryo-electron microscopy. Alessandro was elected a member of EMBO in 2024.

All welcome!