January 21, 2003
Tuesday - 4:00 pm in Swain West 238
Speaker: Dr. Steven Gross, University of California at Irvine
Title: How do cells create and maintain order: A biophysical look at molecular motors
Abstract:
Cells are highly structured, and much of that structure is created and maintained through the use of active transport. Such transport occurs through the action of molecular motors, small enzymes that move along directed polymers and drag 'cargos' such as vesicles from one place in the cell to the other. The details of how these molecular motors work are to some extent unclear: much is known about their single-molecule properties, but how those properties determine their activity in an intact organism is not at all obvious. In this talk I will provide an introduction to molecular motors, describe the biophysical tools used to investigate them, and go on to discuss the link between their single molecule properties and what we have discovered about their function inside of cells.