CID Weekly Seminar Series: Invited Speaker - Tuesday 9 May - Dr Lisa Lindquist

Tuesday 9 May, 12:00 - 1:00pm, Seminar Room 1, TRF Building

Dr Lisa Lindquist, Senior Postdoctoral Fellow

Walter and Eliza Hal Institute, Division of Cell Signalling and Cell Death

Autophagy or “self-eating” is a vital catabolic process that recycles bulk cytoplasmic material but can also selectively degrade organelles such as mitochondria. While autophagy reduces autoimmune and inflammatory responses, aberrant autophagy is linked to cancer and neurological diseases. For the last 10 years there has been an enduring dogma that the pro-survival Bcl-2 family members inhibit autophagy by directly binding to the autophagy protein Beclin 1. However, Lisa’s work overturned this model by revealing that the pro-survival Bcl-2 family members absolutely require Bax and Bak, the effectors of intrinsic apoptosis, to regulate autophagy. She is currently investigating how these early stages of cell suicide initiate autophagy, which occurs independently of caspase activation and cell death. 

Lisa specialises at tackling questions at the interface of fields, such as between protein synthesis and apoptosis, and apoptosis and autophagy. Her research is largely focused on drug development for cancer therapy and characterizing the physiological effects of those inhibitors. She received her PhD from McGill University (Canada) and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Cell Signalling and Cell division.

Research gate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lisa_Lindqvist/info

Please contact andrea.johannessen@monash.edu to schedule a meeting with Lisa after the seminar.

A light lunch is served prior to the seminar at 11:45am in the seminar room foyer, level 2, TRF Building.


Further information, including the link to add the seminar series to your google calendar, is available from CID Weekly Seminar Series website [http://www.med.monash.edu.au/scs/medicine/cid/seminar-series.html]