Join us for our next seminar of 2025.

April 16, 4pm ET

Title: Dynein motor and its adaptors, a journey from yeast to mammalian immune cells

with

Dr. Safia Omer

Post-doctoral fellow cell biologist at the University of Toronto

Bio:

Dr. Safia Omer is a post-doctoral fellow cell biologist at the University of Toronto with +13 years of expertise in biology research using diverse models such as Plasmodium and Leishmania parasites, budding yeast and immune cells. In her research, she applies advanced fluorescence imaging, biochemistry, and cell-based assays to examine the regulation of microtubule-associated proteins.

Abstract:

My work focuses on examining the regulation of an evolutionary conserved motor protein dynein and how and when it associates with its diverse cargos. I examine dynein regulation in yeast, a unicellular organism and in mouse macrophage, a specialized immune cell that remove microbes such as bacteria and parasites. Following contact with these targets, macrophages extend their plasma membranes to surround and encapsulate the particles within an enclosed-membrane compartment known as the phagosome. I identified that ninein, an adaptor protein, is required for the recruitment of the dynein complex to the phagocytic membrane. Drugs that inhibit dynein activity or experimental depletion of ninein protein from macrophages reduces the inward pulling on the developing phagosome. Finally, I found that this early phagosome movement is required for promoting downstream processes that ultimately result in the degradation of the engulfed particle. This work highlights the importance of the adaptor protein ninein, and the motor dynein, and their role in pulling pathogen-containing phagosomes inside macrophages.

——————–

Our monthly online seminar series, features STEMM scholarship from across disciplines, aimed at a general STEMM audience.

All are welcome!

• 4pm ET
• Third Wednesday of every month
• October 2024 through May 2025.

Register once and we will remind you each month.

Watch this space for seminar speaker announcements!

• May 21

The CBSN/RCSN gratefully acknowledges the University of Toronto Scarborough and its support as the Network Host Institution, and the Academic Program Committee of the Network for the BE-STEMM Seminar Series.