Dr Kim Orth and Dr Vincent Tagliabracci
HHMI, UT Southwestern Medical Center

Host: Prof Valerie Mizrahi

Dr. Orth is a Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Investigator for Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the Orth laboratory has discovered many molecular mechanisms used by virulence factors expressed by bacterial pathogens to subvert host signaling pathways, including novel posttranslational modifications. With the pathogen Vibrio parahaemolyticus, they continue to their studies on host pathogen interactions and bacterial signal transduction complexes. With their discovery of AMPylation, they expanded their program to animal models. In a collaborative program, they are uncovering fast evolving virulence factors from pathogens found in the gut and on skin

Dr. Tagliabracci is an Associate Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Investigator for Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  His laboratory has made major contributions to our understanding of noncanonical functions for protein kinases by discovering diverse and unanticipated biochemical activities that are performed by this protein superfamily. Most recently, they have discovered that a kinase-like domain in SARS-CoV-2 forms the cap structure on the viral RNA. Their work on eukaryotic, prokaryotic, and viral kinases has exposed the catalytic versatility of the protein kinase fold and suggests that pseudokinases should be analyzed for alternative transferase activities.