Using fold-switching proteins to look inside AlphaFold’s black box

11:00am

MRB 202 Conference Room

Dr. Lauren Porter (Stadtman Tenure-track Investigator with a primary appointment at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and a secondary appointment at NHLBI)

Though proteins are typically assumed to have fixed secondary structures, some–known as fold switchers–remodel their secondary structures in response to cellular stimuli.  This talk will discuss how fold switchers challenge conventional wisdom about protein structure and how we are leveraging knowledge about these proteins to understand how AlphaFold predicts protein structure.  This research is leading to better models to predict conformational ensembles and mutational effects.