BME7900 Seminar - Nathaniel Vacanti, PhD

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For our next speaker, we welcome Dr. Nathaniel Vacanti. He is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Nutrition in the Division of Nutritional Sciences here at Cornell. Capturing Systems Responses to Nutrient Stimuli with Stable-isotope Tracing and Quantitative Proteomics Abstract: Nutrient utilization is regulated in response to availability, cellular demands, or altered signaling at the molecular level. In vivo, nutrient abundance is dependent on dietary intake and storage while homeostatic mechanisms respond to cellular demands and regulate availability. Thus characterizing responses to nutrient perturbations at a systems level is a promising strategy to identify markers of disease and effective interventions that correct, or exploit for therapeutic purposes, metabolic dysregulations. Proteins perform the lion’s share of cellular functions and are inclusive of nearly all known drug targets while stable-isotope tracing provides an in situ readout of metabolic pathway utilization. Thus mapping proteomic and stable-isotope tracing responses can reveal energetic and biosynthetic regulatory mechanisms and provide a functional guide for potential dietary or pharmaceutical interventions. Bio: Dr. Vacanti earned a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Connecticut, an MS in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego. His postdoctoral work was performed in the Department of Oncology and Pathology at Karolinska Institutet. He joined the faculty in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University as an assistant professor of Molecular Nutrition in the autumn of 2018.