Professor Adrian Goldman from Leeds University Gave a Lecture in Our College

A lecture was hosted by the college of life science and held in Lecture Hall of the college of life sciences at Nankai University on Nov 28, 2018. Professor Adrian Goldman, who comes from the School of Biomedical Sciences in the Leeds University, was invited to give a talk. Dr. Adrian Goldman is Leadership Chair and a Professor in the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology, School of Biomedical Sciences, Leeds University, UK, and Research Director of the Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Finland. His research interests are investigating the structure-function-biology relationship in cell-surface and integral-membrane protein systems. He has published more than 130 papers in the top academic journals. The title of Professor Goldman’s topic was  Progress towards novel inhibitors of protozoan parasites”. The lecture was presided by Professor Mark Bartlam from Nankai university. Many undergraduate and graduate students as well as teachers took part in the lecture.

Combination with his scientific research work, Professor Goldman introduced the structural and functional research progress of membrane-bound pyrophosphatases (mPPases), which couple H⁺/Na⁺ transport to pyrophosphate synthesis/hydrolysis, and are important in the infectivity of protozoan parasites. He showed the structures, with the implied position of the pumped ions, to propose a full catalytic “binding-change” model. He also discussed their efforts towards developing novel mPPase inhibitors that can kill protozoan parasites. During the lecture, the teachers and students expressed great interests and asked some questions. Professor Goldman gave meticulously detailed answers for the questions.