WEHI Wednesday Seminar hosted by Professor James Murphy
 

Dr Chris Horne
Senior Research Officer – Murphy Laboratory, Inflammation division – Infection, Inflammation & Immunity Theme, WEHI

Illuminating mechanisms of calcium signalling and their role in human disease

 

Davis Auditorium

Join via SLIDO enter code #WEHIWednesday

Including Q&A session
 

Calcium ions (Ca2+) are vital secondary messengers that direct a vast array of functions central to the regulation of cell proliferation, growth, metabolism, and immunity. To drive this process, Ca2+-sensor proteins, such as Calmodulin, decode Ca2+-signals by binding and modifying the function of a diverse range of downstream effector proteins. These effectors include Ca2+-Calmodulin dependent protein kinases (CaMKs), which form the backbone of signalling pathways. For some time, researchers in the field have suspected that other protein kinases and Ca2+-sensor proteins may functionally interact to decode Ca2+-signals in unrealised ways.

In this seminar, Chris will introduce his research on calcium signalling and describe two previously unrecognised modes of Ca2+-sensing and decoding, which are mediated by the cell cycle regulator Checkpoint kinase-2 (Chk2), and the understudied ‘dark’ kinase, Protein Serine Kinase-H1 (PSKH1).

Chris completed his PhD in 2019 at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, with Professor Ren Dobson where he unravelled the molecular details of gene regulation for sialic acid metabolism in pathogenic bacteria. Since joining the Murphy Lab in 2020, Chris has studied cell signalling proteins that play roles in human disease, with a focus on those that are understudied.

All welcome!