Join us for the next Cheminar featuring Georgios Pantouris.

Tuesday, Feb. 27 | 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Classroom Building 170

Analysis of Molecular Recognition for the Immunomodulatory Protein D-Dopachrome Tautomerase

D-Dopachrome tautomerase (D-DT) and macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) are two multifunctional immunomodulatory proteins that share an enzymatic and a cytokine activity. Overexpression of MIF and D-DT was reported in inflammation, autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular disorders, and cancer, however only MIF has been extensively characterized. Despite early cloning, D-DT functionality has been poorly studied due to the belief that it is the product of MIF gene duplication. Nevertheless, growing evidence obtained recently has shown that D-DT expression has a non-redundant regulatory function in multiple disorders. Therefore, understanding molecular recognition of D-DT – ligand complexes is a pre-request for the development of new therapeutic agents. This lecture will describe the steps followed to elucidate the structural parameters that control formation of D-DT – ligand complexes. While our study is the first comprehensive analysis of molecular recognition for D-DT, the findings reported herein promote understanding of protein functionality and enable the design of new structure-based drug discovery projects.

About the Speaker

Georgios Pantouris, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of the Pacific, USA. Pantouris received his doctoral degree in Chemistry from the University of Edinburgh, UK. Following his PhD studies, he moved to the Pharmacology Department at Yale University, first as a postdoctoral associate (2012-2017), and then as associate research scientist (2017-2019). He has authored numerous publications and has been the recipient of multiple awards. Pantouris has multidisciplinary expertise in the fields of structural biology, drug discovery, protein chemistry, and cancer biology