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BE Seminar: “Charting the future of RNA and protein sequence-structure exploration” (Kalli Kappel, MIT/Harvard)
March 7 at 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
RNA and protein sequences dictate their structures, spanning multiple length scales, from molecular conformations to patterns of subcellular localization. In turn, these structures govern biological function. Characterizing sequence-structure relationships is critical for gaining mechanistic understanding, but conventional techniques can be slow and low-throughput. We have developed integrated computational and experimental methods to overcome these limitations and have applied them to resolve the three-dimensional structures of a wide range of RNA molecules and RNA-protein complexes, and to systematically reveal the protein sequence features that drive condensate formation in cells. This work paves the way for the development of transformative predictive models of RNA and protein sequence-structure relationships.
Kalli Kappel, Ph.D.
HHMI Hanna Gray Postdoctoral Fellow and Schmidt Science Fellow, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Kalli Kappel is an HHMI Hanna Gray Postdoctoral Fellow and Schmidt Science Fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She received her undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of California, San Diego and her Ph.D. in Biophysics from Stanford University, where she focused on developing computational methods to predict RNA structures and RNA-protein interactions. As a postdoctoral fellow, she has developed and applied a high-throughput experimental approach for characterizing the relationships between protein sequences and condensate formation. By integrating high-throughput experimental measurements and computational modeling, her research program aims to develop predictive models relating protein and RNA sequences to their biophysical properties in cells, and to harness these models to gain novel biological insights and to design functional protein and RNA sequences.