How do cells integrate endocytic membrane trafficking and signal transduction?
Van Leeuwenhoek Lecture on BioScience.
Marta Miaczynska is Professor of Biological Sciences (Warsaw) since 2013.
She started her education in biological sciences at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. She obtained her MSc in Poland (Jagielonian University) and her PhD (genetics) at the University of Vienna (1997). In 2008 she became DSc Habil in Cell Biology at the Nencki Inst. of Exp. Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw.
She has held postdoctoral fellowships at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden. Since 2005 she has served as the head of the Cell Biology Laboratory at the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw.
Her research in the field of cell biology centers on the molecular mechanisms that integrate membrane transport, especially endocytosis, with intracellular signaling pathways. She has discovered, for instance, a separate population of early endosomes in the cell, the so-called APFL endosomes. Together with her team, she has described new functions of endocytic proteins in the regulation of signal transduction and transcription, as well as the role of endosomes as signaling platforms for growth factor receptors and cytokines.
She is the co-author of many publications and has held many fellowships, also she is winner of prestigious foreign grants. She is member of the Committee of Molecular Cell Biology of the Polish Acdemy of Science.
Endocytosis is a process common for all eukaryotic cells, enabling uptake (internalization) of extracellular molecules into membrane-bound vesicles budding from the plasma membrane. Ultimately, different cargo molecules entrapped in endosomes are sorted either towards degradation in lysosomes or recycled back to the plasma membrane. Accumulating evidence indicates that the processes of endocytic trafficking and intracellular signal transduction are tightly linked and mutually dependent on each other. Transduction of extracellular signals is initiated at the plasma membrane and proceeds through the cytoplasm to the nucleus where transcriptional responses take place. Initially, endocytosis was considered merely a mechanism for signal termination by degradation of receptors activated at the plasma membrane. More recent studies argue, however, that transduction of signals from the cell surface can continue within the endocytic pathway, in part via endosome-specific signaling complexes. Therefore, endosomes can act as intracellular platforms for active signal generation and propagation.
I will describe our work on bifunctional proteins co-regulating endocytosis and signal transduction, as well on the role of endosomes in inducing inflammatory signaling from inside the cells.
Please reserve the following dates in your diary (all Thursdays at 16 h.):
November 29 2018, Steve Brown (Zürich, Inst.of Pharmacology and Toxicology)
January 31 2019, Tjeerd Barf (Oss, Acerta Pharma)
February 21 2019, Jan-Willem Veening (Lausanne, Fundamental Microbiology)
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