BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:Data::ICal 0.22 BEGIN:VEVENT DESCRIPTION:Wah Chiu\, Baylor College of Medicine\n\n
The ability of elec tron cryo-microscopy (cryoEM) to rapidly and routinely determine the atomi c structures for biological complexes has transformed the interface of che mistry and biology. Previously\, determining structures at this resolution was only ossible by X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy\, which co uld be slow\, difficult\, and for many complexes impossible.
\n\nOve r the last few years the EM database \;shows a dramatic increase in th e number of cryoEM maps at a resolution higher than 4 Å\;:
\n\n
Year \; \; # 3D maps
\n2012 \; \; \; \; \
; \; \; 4
\n2013 \; \; \; \; \; \;&nb
sp\; 7
\n2014 \; \; \; \; \; \; 36
\n201
5 \; \; \; \; 114
\n2016 \; \; \; \;
167 (as of Oct. 7th)
Dr. Chiu has been a major contributor to th is "\;resolution revolution\,&rdquo\; and his presentation is entitled "\;CryoEM of Molecular Machines at Atomic Resolution.&rdquo\;
\n\nDr. Chiu received his BA in Physics (1969) and PhD in Biophysics (1975) from the University of California\, Berkeley. He is the Alvin Romansky Pr ofessor of Biochemistry and the Distinguished Service Professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston\, Texas. He is a pioneer in methodology dev elopment for electron cryo-microscopy. His work has made multiple transfor mational contributions in developing single particle electron cryo-microsc opy as a tool for the structural determination of molecular machines towar ds atomic resolution.
\n\nFor three decades\, Dr. Chiu has directed an NIH funded 3DEM Resource Center. He has solved many cryoEM structures i ncluding viruses\, chaperonins\, membrane channels\, cytoskeleton protein complexes\, protein-DNA complexes and RNA complexes in collaboration with many scientists around the world. His 3DEM Resource Center continues to es tablish high standard testing and characterization protocols for cryoEM in strumentation and to develop new image processing and modeling algorithms for cryoEM structure determination. \;
\n\nDr. Chiu is the co-fo under of the W.M. Keck Center for Computational Biology and the graduate p rogram in Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics in the early 1990s. These cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional program s involve hundreds of faculty from 7 academic institutions in the Greater Houston Area and have trained many eminent scientists fluent in quantitati ve biomedicine.
\n\nDr. Chiu&rsquo\;s research\, collaboration and t raining efforts have been recognized by his elected membership to the Acad emia Sinica\, Taiwan (2008) and the United States National Academy of Scie nces (2012). \; Other honors include the Distinguished Science Award f rom the Microscopy Society of America (2014) and an \;Honorary Doctora te of Philosophy from the University of Helsinki\, Finland \;(2014). p>\n\n
Dr. Chiu'\;s visit is sponsored and hosted by the
\n 
\; \; \; \; - UVa Program in Biophysics (Dr. Robert Nakamoto)<
br />\n \; \; \; \; - Department of Molecular Physiology a
nd Biological Physics (Drs. Wladek Minor\, Zygmunt Derewenda and Mark Yeag
er)
\n \; \; \; \; -Department of Biochemistry and Mo
lecular Genetics (Drs. Ed Egelman and Anindya Dutta).