A Recipe for Scientific Synergy Series 1 by Dr. Svante Pääbo and Dr. Hisashi Arase

Date

Wednesday, November 10, 2021 - 16:00 to 17:00

Location

Zoom

Description

Summary:

OIST and Osaka University have been building a healthy relationship.

Osaka University, values its relationship with the free and unfettered civic society of Osaka and nurturing the spirit of a "university in society, for society."  OIST will learn from Osaka about symbiotic relationships with society and the surrounding community.  OIST, in turn, would like to share our world-leading research with Osaka University.  Through these exchanges, we hope to establish synergistic relationships to achieve scientific breakthroughs that to contribute to society.
 

Speaker, Title and Abstract:

Dr. Svante Pääbo, OIST

Title："Archaic Genomics"

Our laboratory works on methods to retrieve DNA from ancient bones and other tissue remains. We take a particular interest in Denisovans and Neandertals, extinct human forms. We have shown that gene flow occurred among modern human ancestors and these archaic hominins. As a consequence, about 2.0% of the genomes of people living outside Africa come from Neandertals while about 4.0% of the genomes of people living in Oceania come from Denisovans. These genetic contributions have numerous physiological and medical consequences today. I will discuss recent insights into archaic genetic variants affect pain sensitivity, the risk for miscarriages, and the risk to develop severe disease when infected by SARS-CoV-2.

Profile:
—  Svante Pääbo has developed techniques and approaches that allow DNA sequences from archaeological and paleontological remains to be determined. This has allowed ancient DNA from extinct organisms, humans, animals and pathogens to be studied. His research group has determined high-quality Neandertal genome sequences and discovered Denisovans, a previously unknown hominin group distantly related to Neandertals.  

 

Dr. Hisashi Arase, Osaka University

Title："Neutralizing and enhancing and antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 virus"

Neutralizing antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein play an important role in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, some antibodies were found to change the conformation of the spike protein, and thus enhance the SARS-CoV-2 infectivity. Therefore, it is important to consider the balance of the enhancing antibodies and neutralizing antibodies in SARS-CoV-2 infection. In this talk, I will discuss on the function of neutralizing and infectivity-enhancing antibodies on SARS-CoV-2 infection as well as effect on the mutations on the spike protein observed in SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Profile:
— Hisashi Arase has been studying host-pathogen interaction, especially focusing how pathogens have escaped from immune response and how immune system acquired host-resistance to such pathogens. Especially, we have demonstrated several immune evasion mechanism through inhibitory receptors not only in viruses but also in malaria parasites. We are thinking that infectivity-enhancing antibody is one of molecules involved in immune evasion by SARS-CoV-2.

 

Moderator:

Dr. Matthias Wolf, OIST

Professor, Molecular Cryo-Electron Microscopy Unit

Zoom:

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