Kavli Research & Enterprise Discussions (K.R.E.D)

Our Kavli Research and Enterprise Discussion (K.R.E.D) will be given by Tom Muir.

Tom W. Muir received his B.Sc in chemistry from the University of Edinburgh in 1989 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the same institute in 1993 under the direction of Professor Robert Ramage. After postdoc studies with Stephen B.H. Kent at The Scripps Research Institute, he joined the faculty of The Rockefeller University in 1996, where he was, until 2011, the Richard E. Salomon Family Professor and Director of the Pels Center of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Structural Biology. In 2011, Dr. Muir joined the faculty of Princeton University as the Van Zandt Williams Jr. Class of ’65 Professor of Chemistry. He served as Chair of the Chemistry Department until 2020. He is best known for developing methods for the preparation of proteins containing unnatural amino acids, posttranslational modifications and spectroscopic probes. These approaches are now widely employed in academia and industry. His current interests lie in the area of epigenetics, where he tries to illuminate how chemical changes to chromatin drive different cellular phenotypes. 

Tom's talk is entitled "Illuminating chromatin: chemical biology tools light the way"

The abstract is below. 

The field of epigenetics has exploded over the last two decades revealing an astonishing level of complexity in the way genetic information is stored and accessed in eukaryotes. This expansion of knowledge, very much ongoing, has been made possible by the availability of ever more sensitive and precise molecular tools, including those grounded in the fields of peptide and protein chemistry. In this presentation, I will discuss the development of new opto-chemical genetic approaches designed to explore spatiotemporal aspects of epigenetic regulation. These methods are helping to expose the remarkable nuances (and vulnerabilities) of epigenetic control mechanisms, providing insights into how these processes become corrupted in disease settings.

Please be advised that this is an in person event only and booking is mandatory as the seating is limited.