10/25 – Kevin Drew, University of Illinois Chicago

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Speaker: Kevin Drew

Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois Chicago

Title: Mapping the Molecular Machines of the Cell

Abstract:
Proteins are the functional unit of the cell but they don’t work alone. They assemble into large macromolecular complexes consisting of many subunits to carry out biological processes. As fundamental as this concept is, we still do not know all the molecular assemblies in the cell. Further, we have yet to fully characterize the many complexes currently identified in terms of their structure and function. My lab builds experimental and computational tools to systematically identify and characterize macromolecular complexes. Towards this, I integrated over 15,000 high throughput mass spectrometry experiments in a machine learning framework to build the most accurate and comprehensive human complex map to date called hu.MAP 2.0. The map consists of nearly 7,000 complexes, covers 50% of human proteins, and provides many testable hypotheses for uncharacterized proteins. The vast majority of these complexes, however, still do not have a solved structure. We, therefore, developed a high throughput proteomics experimental platform and statistical analysis algorithms that allow us to systematically identify protein complex structural architectures and build three-dimensional structural models. These experimental and computational tools allow us to identify and characterize macromolecular complexes and further our understanding of their role in the cell.