The Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center will host Dan Lessner, professor of biological sciences at the University of Arkansas, who will present his research into CRISPR-based mutagenesis and the insights it reveals into the unique metabolic of methanogens. This seminar will take place at 12:55 p.m. Wednesday, March 6, in Gearhart Hall 108.

Abstract: Methanogens are the only organisms that produce methane by a metabolism called methanogenesis and are the only archaea capable of biological nitrogen fixation using the metalloenzyme nitrogenase. Iron-sulfur (Fe-S) cluster proteins are essential to methanogenesis and to nitrogen fixation; yet, how methanogens synthesize Fe-S clusters, including in nitrogenase, is largely unknown. Lessner will discuss recent work that uses CRISPR-based mutagenesis to investigate factors predicted to function in Fe-S cluster biogenesis and in nitrogen fixation in the model methanogen Methanosarcina acetivorans.

Biography: Lessner received his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Iowa and completed his postdoctoral research in biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State University. Lessner's research focuses on using genetics and biochemistry to understand the fundamental biology of anaerobic methane-producing archaea (methanogens), microbes that play critical roles in climate change, in the carbon and nitrogen cycles, and in biotechnology. His current research is focused on elucidating the factors involved in ironsulfur cluster biogenesis and nitrogen fixation using the model methanogen Methanosarcina acetivorans.

This event is supported by NIGMS of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P20GM139768. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Pizza and beverages will be served. Please contact Kimberley Fuller, fullerk@uark.edu, for more information.

For those unable to attend in person, this seminar will also be available via Zoom.