DATE:

Friday, March 5, 2021

TIME:

3:30 PM

LOCATION:

Virtual Zoom Conference

SPEAKER:

Rees Garmann, Chemistry, San Diego State University

ABSTRACT:

Self-assembly is a term used to describe any process in which a bunch of small particles, suspended in a fluid and undergoing Brownian motion, spontaneously organize into an ordered structure. Examples of self-assembly are found all over, from the formation of ice crystals in supercooled water to the layer-by-layer synthesis of useful surface coatings in industry. But the most dazzling examples of self-assembly are found in biology, and especially in viruses. In this talk, I will describe how a particular virus — bacteriophage MS2, an RNA virus that infects E. coli bacteria — uses self-assembly to replicate with unprecedented speed and in astronomical yield. I will discuss how self-assembly is key to constructing the viral capsid and folding the viral RNA genome, processes that are likely shared by many viruses. Furthermore, I will describe how new experimental tools from nanoscience enable us to resolve these processes for the first time, at very small (nanometer) length scales and fast (millisecond) time scales. Because our lab is just starting out, some of the talk will be about preliminary results and future directions. Special focus will be paid to problems where computational work is likely needed.

HOST:

Andrew Cooksy

VIDEO: