Air date: Wednesday, November 16, 2022, 2PM
Description: NIH Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series [WALS]
Our long-term objectives are to identify the genes and pathways responsible for heme transport and trafficking in eukaryotes that have remained poorly understood. Many have a preconceived notion that the bulk of heme biology is well-understood. How does heme, a cytotoxic hydrophobic ring with an iron atom, moves within and between cells? How does heme traffic across cellular membranes and get into hemoglobin? These open questions are enormous holes in our knowledge. The central thrust of our research is to uncover these pathways using a multi-organismal, multi-pronged approach. Our pioneering work with the invertebrate animal model C. elegans demonstrated that this roundworm is exceptional because it does not synthesize heme but rather utilizes environmental heme to manufacture heme-containing proteins that have human homologs. The presentation will highlight efforts in the Hamza lab to understand the mechanistic aspects of heme trafficking as well as how functional insights into these processes lay the groundwork for elucidating the molecular etiology of human disease and parasitic infections.
For more information go to https://oir.nih.gov/wals
Author: Iqbal Hamza, Ph.D., University of Maryland School of Medicine
Permanent link: https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=46015
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