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SUMMARY:Understanding cellular oxygen sensing mechanisms: adventures of a 
 physician in discovery science. - Sir Peter Ratcliffe
DTSTART:20231016T170000Z
DTEND:20231016T183000Z
UID:TALK205351@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Drishtant Chakraborty
DESCRIPTION:The maintenance of oxygen homeostasis is a fundamental physiol
 ogical challenge\, inadequate oxygen (hypoxia) being a major component of 
 most human diseases. The lecture will trace insights into human oxygen hom
 eostasis from the founding work of William Harvey on the circulation of th
 e blood to the molecular elucidation of a system of oxygen sensing that fu
 nctions to measure oxygen levels in cells and control adaptive cellular an
 d systemic responses to hypoxia. It will describe how work that commenced 
 with studies of the regulation of the erythropoietin (EPO) gene by blood o
 xygen availability led to the unexpected discovery that the underlying oxy
 gen sensitive process is present in all animal cells. The lecture will out
 line how the actual oxygen sensitive signal is generated by a set of ‘ox
 ygen splitting’ enzymes that modify the key transcription factor (HIF) t
 o signal its degradation (and hence inactivation) in the presence of oxyge
 n.  It will attempt to illustrate and rationalise the unexpected in biolog
 ical discovery and discuss the interface of discovery science with the dev
 elopment of medical therapeutics.
LOCATION:Pfizer Lecture Theatre\,  Department of Chemistry\, Lensfield Roa
 d
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