CRISPR-CARF Immunity: Sacrificing the Host for the Benefit of the Population
Event Details
- Type
- Monday Lecture Series
- Speaker(s)
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Luciano Marraffini, Ph.D., Kayden Family Professor and head, Laboratory of Bacteriology, The Rockefeller University; investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Speaker bio(s)
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While most CRISPR-Cas systems provide defense to their prokaryotic hosts through direct attack (cleavage) of the viral DNA, type III CRISPR-Cas systems provide immunity using CARF protein effectors that induce the arrest of the infected cell. The type III immune response starts with the recognition of viral transcripts of harboring sequences that are complementary to crRNA guides, leading to the production of cyclic oligoadenylate second messengers that bind and activate CARF effectors. Dr. Marraffini will describe different CARF effectors recently characterized in the Marraffini lab in collaboration with the Patel lab, which induce of a growth arrest through a variety of different mechanisms. The study of type III CRISPR-CARF immunity, as well as of other novel CRISPR systems, has revealed that CRISPR immunity do not always operate through sequence-specific degradation of phage DNA, as initially thought, but through a wider range of cellular responses.
Luciano Marraffini received his undergraduate degree from the University of Rosario in Argentina and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2007. He was a Jane Coffins Child Memorial Fund for Medical Research Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University and joined Rockefeller as assistant professor in 2008. He was promoted to associate professor in 2016 and to professor in 2018. He was appointed Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in 2018 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2019.Marraffini has received numerous awards and distinctions, among them the Hans Sigrist Prize (2015), the Earl and Thressa Stadtman Scholar Award (2016), the NIH Pioneer Award (2017), the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research (2017), the Max-Planck Humboldt Medal (2020), the Genetics Society of America Medal (2024), and the Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science (2024).
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- Campus Only