[https://marketing.purdue.edu/Email/TemplateSets/ChE/Templates/Template04/Images/che-engineering-logo-400-white-text.png]<https://engineering.purdue.edu/ChE> Purdue University School of Chemical Engineering Graduate seminar series Dr. Anne Skaja Robinson, Chair Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Tulane University "Adenosine receptor expression and biophysical characterization: Role of the protein and lipid characteristics in trafficking and activity" Tuesday, September 8, 2015 3:00 - 4:15 p.m. FRNY G140 Reception at 2:30 p.m. in Henson Atrium Abstract: Proteins that reside in the cell membrane are among the most important of all proteins, as they play key roles in almost every cellular process, and represent over a third of all proteins, yet they represent one of the most difficult challenges for expression and isolation, because they are partially hydrophobic, flexible, and unstable in isolation. The adenosine receptor subfamily is important in modulating blood pressure, and more recently has been implicated in cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and diabetes. Our laboratory has had great success expressing the human adenosine A2a receptor (A2aR) in yeast, and I will describe biophysical studies to understand the role of the membrane mimetic environment on the protein stability and function. I will also describe methods to uncover the limitations to expression of other adenosine family receptors, utilizing protein chimeras to determine critical receptor regions. Bio: Anne Skaja Robinson joined Tulane University in January 2012 as the Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Prior to Tulane, Dr. Robinson was a Full Professor and Associate Chair at the University of Delaware, where she started her academic career in 1997. Her honors include a DuPont Young Professor Award, and a National Science Foundation Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering (PECASE) Award, and she is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Dr. Robinson has raised over $8 million in grants as a principal investigator from NSF, NIH and private foundations, and $24 million as a co-investigator from NIH and NSF. She also has led a $2.5 million NSF-funded IGERT multidisciplinary graduate training program in biotechnology. She has several patents and over 75 publications in the field of biochemical engineering, and has graduated 18 PhD and 4 MS students. Dr. Robinson has been a member of AIChE since 1989, and has been actively involved in the AIChE and American Chemical Society for her entire career. She has been active in programming for both societies, and was chair in 2006 of the ACS Biochemical Technology division after being the 2004 Program Co-chair. In 2015, she was elected to the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. She is on the advisory board of Biotechnology and Bioengineering and the editorial board of Biotechnology Journal, and has been an ad hoc reviewer for many NIH and NSF study sections. She is also a member of the Advisory Committee for Pharmaceutical Sciences of the Food and Drug Administration. School of Chemical Engineering<https://engineering.purdue.edu/ChE> Purdue University West Lafayette, IN 47907 (765) 494-4050<tel:+17654944050> (c) 2015 Purdue University<http://www.purdue.edu/purdue/disclaimer.html> All rights reserved An equal access/equal opportunity university<http://www.purdue.edu/purdue/ea_eou_statement.html>