NSSS: Catalytic strategies of RNA enzymes viewed through the lens of computational enzymology

Professor Darrin York, Henry Rutgers University Professor and Director, Laboratory for Biomolecular Simulation Research Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

"Catalytic strategies of RNA enzymes viewed through the lens of computational enzymology"

A predictive understanding of the mechanisms of RNA cleavage is important for the design of emerging technology built from biological and synthetic molecules that have promise for new biochemical and medicinal applications.  Very recently, several classes of small, self-cleaving nucleolytic ribozymes have emerged and been characterized structurally.  In this talk, the mechanisms of several archetype RNA enzymes as well as a DNA enzyme are studied using a “computational RNA enzymology” approach that aims to provide an atomic-level description that unifies the interpretation of the current body of experimental structural and mechanistic data. 

• Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88439896513

Professor Darrin York of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, obtained his PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1993. He then worked as an NSF postdoctoral fellow with Professor Weitao Yang at Duke University, and went on to an NIH postdoctoral fellowship with Nobel Prize recipient Martin Karplus at Harvard University. He was on the faculty at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities until 2010, when he joined the faculty at Rutgers where he is Henry Rutgers University Professor, and Director of the laboratory for Biomolecular Simulation Research.

Co-sponsored by: Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Science Club