Trailblazer Lecture with Shelley Berger (University of Pennsylvania)
Co-hosted by the CRC 1064 and the BMC
03.12.2024
Tuesday, December 3, 2024 at 2 p.m.
Title: “Epigenetic and neuropeptide (re)programming of ant behavior"
Small Lecture Hall (N 02.040)
Biomedical Center of the LMU
Großhaderner Strasse 9, Martinsried
Host: Peter Becker, BMC
Throughout her illustrious career, Shelley Berger has been a trailblazer for the epigenetic research community. Her work as a postdoctoral fellow and young investigator was fundamental to the emerging concept of chromatin-mediated transcriptional regulation, identifying transcriptional co-activators that turned out to be histone acetyltransferase (HAT) complexes. Shelley and her team realized early on that these HAT complexes acetylate proteins other than histones. The observation that acetylation of p53 was functionally important established a broadly applicable principle in tumor biology.
The term 'epigenetics' was first coined in a developmental context: how is it that morphologically distinct insect developmental stages (such as larvae, pupae and adults) arise from the same genome? Over the past decade, Shelley (initially in collaboration with D. Reinberg) has tackled this most fundamental question by exploring the molecular basis of ant cast determination. Her fascinating journey has taken her from chromatin-mediated gene regulation, through metabolic signaling and neuroendocrinology, to understanding and reprogramming the cast-specific behavior of ants. Shelley will summarize this journey (pubmed:Berger-SL ant) and present her latest findings (Cell, in press).