This week, we welcome speaker Dr. Ailong Ke. Dr. Ke is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics here at Cornell.
From High-resolution Mechanisms to Applications for CRISPR-Cas
Abstract: CRISPR-Cas serves as an RNA-based adaptive immunity system in prokaryotes. The diverse CRISPR systems can be categorized into two major classes and multiple types therein. Type I CRISPR-Cas (or CRISPR-Cas3) belongs to Class 1 and is the most prevalent CRISPR system found in nature. In part I of my talk, I will give a comprehensive explanation of CRISPR-Cas3 based interference mechanism, based on the high-resolution biochemistry and structural biology work from my lab. I will further explain CRISPR-Cas3 based genome editing applications. As an acquired immunity system, CRISPR-Cas relies on the Cas1-Cas2 integrase complex to insert new spacers into the CRISPR array. This leads to the synthesis of new guide RNAs that direct the effector complex to complementary foreign genetic targets. In part II of my talk, I will present our work on generating the high-resolution mechanisms for Cas1-Cas2 mediated spacer acquisition process.
Bio: Ailong Ke is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics. Dr. Ke is a member of the Graduate Field of Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology, the Graduate Field of Biophysics, and the Graduate Field of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. The Ke lab studies the structure and function of RNA molecules. He received his Ph.D. in Biophysics from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2002 under with Cynthia Wolberger. He has received the RNA Society Mid-Career Award in 2018. In the same year, he also received the Cornell University Provost Research Innovation Award in Life Sciences.
