Western Kentucky University
Department of Physics and Astronomy

Colloquium

Dr. Katherine Davis

Department of Chemistry
Emory University

"Lights, Camera, Action: Developing Time-Resolved Methods to Study Metalloenzymes "

March 11, 2024 @ 4:00 pm in KTH 2038 (Zoom ID: 93595838321)

About the Speaker

After formal coursework in physics and mathematics at the University of Louisville, Kate pursued doctoral research in the Dept. of Physics at Purdue University. There, under the guidance of Prof. Yulia Pushkar, she employed X-ray spectroscopic methods to study natural and artificial photosynthetic reaction centers. She subsequently conducted her postdoctoral training in the Dept. of Chemistry at Princeton University, where she was jointly mentored in enzymology and structural biology by Prof. John T. Groves (Princeton) and Prof. Amie Boal (the Pennsylvania State University), respectively. Kate joined the Department of Chemistry at Emory in January 2020. Her lab works at the interface of physics, chemistry, and biology to investigate the unique strategies enzymes employ that make them so effective, with a particular interest in developing and applying physical methods for monitoring metalloenzyme dynamics.

Abstract

Enzymes are tiny molecular machines that facilitate chemical reactions in all living things. However, some of these reactions are so complex that they are difficult to recreate synthetically, especially for enzymes that utilize metals. Understanding how these so-called ‘metalloenzymes’ function is critical for advancements across a broad range of fields from human health and medicine to alternative energy research, and numerous industrial applications. Unfortunately, enzymes are inherently dynamic systems and monitoring their reactions in real-time is technically challenging, so we have little information about what enables their reactivity. The development of spectroscopic methods for studying these processes coincidentally with structural rearrangements is essential for elucidating metalloenzyme mechanisms. We are developing a methodology for the simultaneous collection of structural and spectroscopic data that can report on atomic motions and changes to the metal centers as a function of time, thereby enhancing our understanding of these essential machines.