CEMO monthly seminar - Eva Lau

CEMO is delighted to announce the seminars of the department that will be given by PhD student and Postdoc.

The seminar is followed by a lunch (kindly provided by the department) in order to allow everybody to interact and promote collaboration between labs.

Agenda:

12:00 - Brain development and disorders: Role of the diaphanous related formin 3 -Eva Lau (Developmental neurobiology group)

Formins constitute a family of 15 proteins in the mouse and human, characterized by the presence of two formin homology domains. By interacting with the growing ends of actin filaments, formins protect from capping, catalyse actin polymerization and regulate filament bundling into filopodia, supporting the establishment and maintenance of cell polarity during development and in response to disease. Diaphanous formins, known in mammals as Diaph1, 2 and 3 (Diaph1–3) are a subgroup of the formin family related to Drosophila diaphanous. Diaphanous formins have also been reported to regulate microtubules and therefore cell migration. Recent studies in our lab found that Diaph3 is important for cortical progenitor proliferation. Lack of Diaph3 relaxed spindle assembly checkpoint and led to mitotic errors. Defect in cell division is a common cause of many neurological diseases, including microcephaly and neoplasia.

12:45 - Q&A session

13:00 - Lunch