Biology, Biophysics, Chemistry
Yale University
Kallol Gupta is an assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine, Department of Cell Biology, Nanobiology Institute. His lab’s interest is to discover the novel transient membrane and membrane associated multiprotein complexes formed during the progression of different cellular signalling pathways.
With more than 60% marketed drugs targeting membrane proteins, a detail understanding of structural and functional regulation of membrane protein is of pivotal interest. In the recent years, we have made a remarkable progress towards obtaining structures of independent membrane proteins. Nevertheless, in the crowded milieu of the membrane, membrane proteins form a large numbers of dynamic and transient complexes with other soluble and membrane proteins, lipids and various other endogenous and extraneous regulators, which in turn govern cellular physiology. Hence, discovering these complexes and deconvoluting their spatiotemporal evolution along the progression of cellular cycle pose the next big question. Using native mass spectrometry, in combination of with other experimental and theoretical approaches, the lab provides a novel top down deconstructive vantage point to this problem. Our approach enables us to detect membrane protein complexes directly from the native environment, identify the novel interacting partners and subsequently track their spatiotemporal progression. We have further developed a spatial lipidomics platform that renders a view of the lipid microdomain where they reside. Applying these to dynamic macro-molecular membrane associated system our aim is to delineate the molecular mechanisms behind cellular signalling pathways that are key pharmacological targets for various disease condition.