Colloquium

Thursday, November 2, 12:30-1:45

 Kinard G01

Emerging Functional Order in Biological Networks

David Lynn

Emory University

Abstract: Our lab helped initiate the emerging field of Systems Chemistry in the US, an approach that looks holistically at the functional structures of synthetic and biomolecular supramolecular materials. As life has been broadly described as a computation optimizing the storage and use of environmental information, the incredible harnessing of sequence specific polymers to interconvert physical and chemical energy and achieve resilient functions increasingly depends on molecular information and mutualistic synergy. In today’s biology, biopolymer mutualism combines the “digital” information storage as in DNA with the diverse environmentally responsive “analog” functions of proteins. Discrete associations constrain the folding diversity of these biopolymer networks where the protein/RNA coacervate, the ribosome, serves as the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) of molecular information flow. Exploiting the current synthetic and analytical capabilities for preparing and modifying polymeric materials, we ask if it is now possible to create new mutualistic chemical networks capable of alternative replication, new polymer translation, and alternative physical/chemical energy interconversion processes that are possibly able to adapt to our rapidly changing climate?

Bio: David G. Lynn has contributed scholarship in the areas of molecular recognition, synthetic biology, and chemical evolution, and has developed chemical and physical methods for the analysis of supramolecular self-assemblies, signal transduction in cellular development and pathogenesis, molecular skeletons for storing and reading information, and the evolution of biological order. After a fellowship at Columbia University and teaching at the University of Virginia and Cornell University, he served as a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago until 2000 before moving to accept the A. G. Candler Professorship in Chemistry and Biology at Emory University. In 2002, Lynn was awarded one of 20 inaugural Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professorships, and in 2011 he was awarded the Emory Scholar-Teacher Award for pioneering science/arts creations communicating science and appointed as an AAAS Fellow for scholarship. He received the ACS Herty Metal in 2013 and served as Chair of the Department of Chemistry from 2006-15.

Light lunch will be served for those attending the colloquium in Kinard 114 at 11:30

Recent publications include:

Anil Kumar Bandela, Hava Sadihov-Hanoch, Rivka Cohen-Luria, Christella Gordon, Alexis Blake, George Poppitz, David G. Lynn, and Gonen Ashkenasy, 2022, The Systems Chemistry of Nucleic-acid-Peptide Networks, Israel J Chemistry, doi.org/10.1002/ijch.202200030

Christella Gordon-Kim, Allisandra Rha, George A. Poppitz, Jillian Smith-Carpenter, Regina Luu, Alexis B. Roberson, Russell Conklin, Alexis Blake, David G. Lynn, 2023, Polyanion order controls liquid-to-solid phase transition in peptide/nucleic acid co-assembly, Frontiers in Biomolecular Chemistry, DOI 10.3389/fmolb.2022.991728

Anthony Sementilli, Rolando F. Rengifo_, Wei Li, Andrew M. Stewart, Katie L. Stewart, Umar Twahir, Youngsun Kim, Jipeng Yue, Anil K. Mehta, Jason Shearer, Kurt Warncke, David G. Lynn 2023 Constructing Minimal Biomolecular Electron Transport Chains, submitted to Inorganic Chem

Sadihov-Hanoch, H.,  Bandela, A.K   Chotera-Ouda, A.C., Oshrat Ben David, O.B., Cohen-Luria, R.,  Lynn, D.G.,  Ashkenasy, G. 2023 Dynamic exchange controls the assembly structure of nucleic-acid-peptide chimeras, Soft Matter, 19, 3940-3945. https:// doi.org/10.1039/D2SM01528E, https://doi.org/10.1039/d2sm01528e

Stephen J. Klawa, Michelle Lee, Kyle D. Riker, Tengyue Jian, Qunzhao Wang, Shreeya Bhonge, Yuan Gao, W. Seth Childers, Tolulope O. Omosun, Anil K. Mehta, David G. Lynn, and Ronit Freeman 2023 Uncovering Supramolecular Chirality Codes for the Design of Tunable Biomaterials, submitted to Chem.

Christella Gordon-Kim^1ǂ, Chongchong Xu^2ǂ, Noel X. Li^1ǂ, George Poppitz, Ethan Veinbachs, Anirudh Pidugu¹, Weibo Niu², Lary C. Walker³*, Zhexing Wen^2,3,4*, David G. Lynn. 2023 Propagation of Alzheimer’s Disease Strains in Human Brain Organoids. Submitted to JBC.