The Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center (AIMRC) will host Dr. Danielle Schmitt, assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles at 12:55 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 2, in BELL 2267. In this talk, she will discuss her lab's ongoing efforts to study metabolic regulatory networks and to develop new tools for imaging metabolism with high spatiotemporal resolution.

Abstract: Metabolism is a central process to life, and the precise spatiotemporal control over metabolism is critical for proper cellular and organismal function. The Schmitt Lab is interested in understanding how metabolism is spatiotemporally regulated within the cell at distinct subcellular locations and how this regulation is perturbed in metabolic diseases. Our work has two main focuses:

1. To understand how the signaling networks regulating metabolism are spatiotemporally localized and the downstream effects of localized activity and
2. To study compartmentalized metabolic flux in health and disease.

Our approach to understanding compartmentalized metabolic regulation is to develop genetically encoded fluorescent protein-based biosensors to detect and measure changes in cellular activity with high spatial and temporal resolution.

In this talk, Schmitt will describe ongoing efforts within the lab to study metabolic regulatory networks and develop new tools for imaging metabolism with high spatiotemporal resolution. 

Biography: Schmitt is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at University of California, Los Angeles. An Ohio native, Schmitt obtained her B.S. in chemistry and biochemistry from Ball State University, where she was a Lewis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Scholar. She obtained her Ph.D. in biochemistry at University of Maryland Baltimore County with Professor Songon An. Her doctoral work was on identifying mechanisms for formation of multienzyme complexes formed by metabolic enzymes. Schmitt then did her postdoctoral training with Professor Jin Zhang at University of California San Diego as a University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow. There, she used genetically encoded reporters for kinase activity to study subcellular regulation of cellular signal transduction. Schmitt joined the UCLA faculty in 2022, and in 2023 she was awarded the NIH Director's New Innovator Award. The focus of her laboratory is developing and using genetically encoded tools that can be used to study metabolic events in single cells with high spatiotemporal resolution.

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.

https://uark.zoom.us/j/83082355385?pwd=a21NRVM3cjQxQ3k2ZkpZTVVINUV3UT09