Pollard Lecture Scheduled for 11 September

30 August 2006 — Robert T. Sauer, the Salvador E. Luria Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will present the 2006/2007 Ernest C. Pollard Lecture at 4:00 p.m. on Monday, 11 September, in 101 Althouse Laboratory on the Penn State University Park campus. The free public lecture, titled "Machines of Protein Destruction," will address how the machines of protein destruction (AAA+ machines) recognize specific proteins as targets, carry out adenosine-triphosphate (ATP)-dependent dismantling of the molecules during the protein-degradation process, and disassemble macromolecular complexes into individual enzymes. These enzymes function in all forms of life to sculpt the cellular proteome-the complete set of proteins from the information encoded on a genome-ensuring that dangerous proteins are eliminated and that biological responses to environmental change are rapidly and properly regulated.

Sauer is a protein biochemist and molecular geneticist, and is recognized as a world leader in the field of molecular recognition in structural biology. His research addresses fundamental questions related to the relationship between protein structure, sequence, folding, and function with particular attention to ATP-dependent cellular machines that catalyze protein destruction, as well as the cellular systems that target proteins for destruction. He and his co-workers use biophysical, genetic, structural, and design strategies to study the relationship between the sequence, stability, and three-dimensional structures of proteins. They also are interested in the mechanisms used by intracellular proteases to select the correct targets, and how ATP-dependent proteases catalyze protein denaturation, causing the normal folded structure of a protein to unfold so that some of its original properties, especially its biological activity, are diminished or eliminated.

Sauer was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1996 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993. He received his bachelor's degree in biophysics from Amherst College and his doctoral degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard University.

The Ernest C. Pollard Lecture is named in honor of the professor of physics who taught at Penn State from 1961 to 1971 and founded the Department of Biophysics. In 1979 the Department of Biophysics merged with the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry to form the present Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

For more information, contact the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at 814-865-3072 or email txh9@psu.edu .

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