The intricate world of Inter-organ communication
Time: Apr. 27th, 2018, 10:00-11:00
Venue: Medical Science Building, Room B323
Host: Dr. Jianquan Ni
举办单位：清华大学
Norbert Perrimon PhD
Professor of Developmental Biology, Harvard Medical School
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Member of the National Academy of Sciences
Boston, MA 02115, USA
Biography: Prof. Perrimon received his Maitrise degree of Biochemistry from University of Paris VI in 1981; He received Ph.D. of Developmental Genetics from University of Paris VI in 1983. Then, he did Postdoctoral Research at Case Western Reserve University from 1983 to 1986. He started his independent research career at Harvard University in 1986 and now he is the James Stillman Professor of Developmental Biology at Harvard Medical School and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He has 30 years of experience in the fields of developmental genetics, signal transduction, and genomics. Dr. Perrimon has trained more than 90 students and postdoctoral fellows, many of whom currently hold academic positions. He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, EMBO, and the National Academy of Sciences.
Abstract: Organ-to-organ communications are critical to living systems and play major roles in homeostasis. I will describe the role of a number of secreted factors (ImpL2/IGFBP; Myostatin/GDF11; Upd2/Leptin; Activin-beta) that we identified from genetic screens in Drosophila by which organs communicate their physiological state to others. These genetic screens are combined with RNAseq of specific organs to define the transcriptional signatures corresponding to their homeostatic states, mass spec analyses from blood to characterize secreted factors, and a novel proteomic method to discover organ communication factors. It is anticipated that these studies will reveal how subnetworks in one tissue influence subnetworks in a second tissue. Ultimately, this knowledge will generate testable hypotheses related to disease states (e.g., diabetes, aging, cancer), i.e., how biological processes observed in one tissue/organ (e.g., decreased cellular metabolism, mitochondrial dysfunction) may influence processes observed in a different tissue/organ.
