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Talk by Gunnar Schulte

Title: "Frizzled dynamics as an intrinsic requirement for receptor activation"
Occasion: SFB Seminar
Start: 09.01.2025 4:15 pm
Location: CellNanOs, 38/201

About the speaker: Prof. Dr. Gunnar Schulte conducts research at the Dept. Physiology & Pharmacology, Sec. Receptor Biology & Signaling at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

The lab of Gunnar Schulte is devoted to understanding the mechanisms of activation of Class F GPCRs with focus on the Frizzled (FZD family consisting of ten paralogs (FZD1-10). FZDs are important to mediate WNT signalling for example during embryonic development to regulate stem cells, cell differentiation, organogenesis and embryonic architecture. Dysfunctional WNT/FZD signalling can lead to diverse disorders ranging from developmental disorders or fibrosis to a plethora of cancers. The Schulte lab combines pharmacological and computational approaches, biochemistry, cellular imaging, biophysical methodologies, and cryoEM to elucidate the molecular details of ligand-induced and constitutive receptor activation, signal initiation and specification. The prime focus is to understand receptor dynamics including dynamic aspects of receptor conformation, receptor complex composition, receptor-lipid interactions and transducer coupling as part of the FZD activation process. Based on the novel insights, the goal is to drug FZDs with small molecules in a paralog selective manner for future anticancer therapy.