MCB Seminar Speaker Series: Systems Biology of Polyphosphates

Dr. Michael Downey, Associate Professor of Cellular & Molecular Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa is the next speaker in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Seminar Speaker Series. 

Dr. Downey received his PhD from the University of Toronto in 2008 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he studied protein lysine acetylation. In 2014, he joined the University of Ottawa as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cellular & Molecular Medicine and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2020. Since then, he has also served as the Associate Director of the Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology (OISB).

While his lab continues to investigate protein lysine acetylation, a second major focus of his research is polyphosphate biology. Polyphosphates are long chains of inorganic phosphates linked by energy-rich bonds, similar to those found in ATP. Once considered an evolutionary relic, polyphosphates have recently gained renewed interest due to emerging connections to human health and disease. Dr. Downey's lab explores how polyphosphates function through interactions with protein targets, as well as the mechanisms of polyphosphate synthesis and turnover across diverse model systems, including bacteria, budding yeast, and human cell cultures.

All are welcome to attend. Light refreshments will be served.