We invite you to join the following seminars in the scope of the UCMR Distinguished Guests Seminars Series!
Please register to get access to all seminars that will be part of the series during this semester: Registration
November 22 2021, 14:00-15:00 Venue: via Zoom
Urs Greber University of Zurich, Switzerland
Title of the talk: “Adenovirus cell-to-cell infection variability”
Host PI: Niklas Arnberg
Professor Dr. Urs Greber is a cell biologist and virologist. He is a full professor at the Department of Molecular Life Sciences of the University of Zürich. Urs Greber graduated from the ETH Zürich with a PhD degree in Biotechnology and trained in yeast genetics at the Swiss Institute of Experimental Cancer Research in Lausanne. He was a postdoctoral scientist at the Research Institute of Scripps Clinic, La Jolla, CA, and Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, USA. In 2007, he co-founded the start-up company 3V-Biosciences (now Sagimet Biosciences located in San Mateo, CA, USA) developing treatments of unmet diseases. Professor Greber is an expert in virus infection biology with more than 138 publications in journals, and over 13300 citations. He is internationally recognized for his activities as a section editor with PLoS Pathogens, an editor of FEMS reviews and FEBS Letters. He received more than 10 Mio Euro of grant funding over more than 25 years, and holds patents with academia and industry. His recent work employs systems analyses, and investigates innate immunity in human DNA and RNA viruses, leading to new insights into the cell-to-cell variability of virus infections.
November 30 2021, 11:00-12:00 Venue: via Zoom
Feng Shao National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China
Title of the talk: “Pyroptosis in antibacterial & antitumor immunity”
Host PI: Yaowen Wu
Dr. Feng Shao is an investigator and the deputy director for academic affairs at the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing, China, with a research focus on molecular mechanisms of bacterial infection and host innate immunity defense. Feng Shao graduated from Medical School at the University of Michigan with a PhD in Biological chemistry and did his postdoctoral training at University of California, School of Medicine, and Harvard Medical School, with focus on Bacterial pathogenesis and Ubiquitin signaling. Using pathogens such as Shigella, Salmonella, Enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC), Legionella and Burkholderia as the model, Dr. Feng Shao discovered and revealed some novel and common biochemical mechanisms utilized by bacterial effectors in modulating host signal transduction pathways. These discoveries for the first time identify the inflammasome receptor dedicated for bacteria, establish a biochemical framework of cytosolic antibacterial immunity, and also explain how innate immunity distinguishes pathogens from non-pathogenic microbes. For his most current projects, he received more than 3.7 Mio Euro of grant funding. He is member of Chinese Academy of Sciences.