SCIENCE AT THE SHINE DOME canberra 6 - 8 may 2009

New Fellows Seminar

Thursday, 7 May 2009

Professor Robert Parton FAA
Professor of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Brisbane

Robert Parton studied biochemistry in the UK before moving to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. He received Royal Society and EMBO postdoctoral fellowships before becoming a group leader in 1990 studying plasma membrane domains and cell surface dynamics. In 1996, he moved to the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. He is currently a group leader in the Institute for Molecular Bioscience and deputy director of the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis. His research centres on the microdomains of the plasma membrane, with a particular focus on caveolae (cell surface pits) and caveolin proteins. He was involved in the discovery of caveolin-1 and the muscle-specific form of caveolin, caveolin-3. He is currently using a number of experimental systems to understand how caveolae form, to dissect the structure of caveolae and caveolins, and to investigate the role of caveolae in health and in disease. He received an NHMRC Australia Fellowship in January 2009 to work on a novel drug delivery system. He is currently an associate editor of the Journal of Cell Biology, Traffic, and Molecular Biology of the Cell.

Studying the cell surface: From molecular cell biology to a potential therapeutic vehicle The cell surface or plasma membrane plays a crucial role in protecting the cell from its environment and in allowing the cell to respond to changes in the outside world. These functions rely on the specialisation of the cell surface into distinct domains with distinct functions. Recent research has focused on microscopic cell surface pits called caveolae. These fundamental cell biological studies have led to unexpected discovery that dysfunction of caveolae is associated with many disease conditions, including forms of muscular dystrophy. In this talk I will describe how our efforts to understand the molecular basis of caveolae formation in mammalian cells has led to the discovery of a new system to generate a nano-sized vesicle in bacteria. These vesicles, which contain no detectable bacterial proteins, can be isolated to high purity in a single step and foreign agents can be incorporated into the vesicles in an extremely specific manner as they pinch from the membrane. This makes the vesicles a novel encapsulation system for therapeutics. Of equal importance and significance is the finding that the protein that induces, and coats, the exterior of the nanovesicles, can be engineered to target the nanovesicles to specific cell types. In addition to the therapeutic potential of this discovery, this system is providing new insights into fundamental aspects of cellular organisation.