CSB Special Seminar – Justin Bosch – Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

CSB Special Seminar

Justin Bosch, PhD

Postdoctoral fellow (Norbert Perrimon’s Lab), Genetics Department, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

TITLE: Mapping organ-secreted proteins in circulation

ABSTRACT: My research program aims to study inter-organ communication using state-of-the-art methods in Drosophila. While a number of secreted inter-organ factors (e.g. hormones) have been identified in mammals, recent proteomic efforts suggest blood plasma contains the protein equivalent of “dark matter” – hundreds to thousands of cryptic circulating proteins and peptides. Historical approaches of studying individual hormones are inadequate to systematically tackle the amazing complexity of inter-organ signals. Drosophila represents an ideal system to deploy modern proteomic and genetic approaches to obtain a near-complete inventory of inter-organ factors, including mapping their tissues of origin, tissue targets, and physiological functions. Importantly, Drosophila organ systems are functionally orthologous with human, and many endocrine systems are conserved (e.g. Insulin). During my post-doc, I developed novel proteomic and gene editing tools that overcome previous technical limitations associated with discovery and analysis of inter-organ factors. Furthermore, I identified two novel systemic growth factors that alter animal body size, with potential relevance to pathways disrupted in diabetes. Work in my lab will initially focus on systemic growth regulation, as well as developing new proteomic and gene editing tools for future discovery and study of inter-organ factors. Study of inter-organ factors has tremendous potential for understanding disease mechanisms and can accelerate the development of new biomarkers and therapeutics.

HOST: Ulrich Tepass

LOCATION: Cell and Systems Biology, 25 Harbord Street, Suite 432

Live Stream Link: https://csb.utoronto.ca/live-stream/