reminder

Subject: "Concepts in Biocatalysis" seminar by Dr. Aleksandra Marsavelski

Dear All,

We will continue our lecture series “Concepts in Biocatalysis” with a lecture given by Dr. Aleksandra Marsavelski on Friday February 7 at 13:00 (sharp) in the Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine (Aapistie 7A, Kontinkangas) in the lecture hall F101. The title of her talk is “The EVB-method: in silico approach for understanding the mechanism of enzyme catalysis”. This presentation is also organized and funded by the Health and Biosciences Doctorol Program (HBS-DP) of the University of Oulu Graduate School. Coffee and pulla will be offered before the lecture.

Dr. Marsavelski is a group leader and Associated Professor and comes from the Department of Chemistry, University of Zagreb, Croatia. Her research interests are related to computational biochemistry and enzymology (http://gruic.chem.pmf.unizg.hr/people/professors/#marsavelski).

She uses the EVB (empirical valence bond) biocomputing method developed by Arieh Warshel to study reaction mechanism of enzymes. This research field is highly relevant, given the need to develop more sustainable methods to produce the compounds that are needed by the society. In principle this can be achieved by engineering suitable enzymes.

We initiated the seminar series during the ERDF StrucBioCat project (2012-2014; http://www.oulu.fi/biocenter/strucbiocat). These lectures have been given by scientists, either from academia or from biotech companies. The coming and the past lectures can be found under the following link: https://www.oulu.fi/biocenter/protein-crystallography/events. The aim of these lectures is to become better informed about recent developments in the biocatalysis research field and to get more collaboration between the biotech companies and the university researchers.

We are further improving our infrastructure with help of a new ERDF project “New technological solutions to enhance Biocenter Oulu services” –AutoBioCat (2018-2020) (https://www.oulu.fi/biocenter/erdf/autobiocat, contact person Outi Lampela). The improved infrastructure increases method development options and is a response to growing sample numbers. This infrastructure shall be introduced a bit later during this Spring season.

This is also a great opportunity for biotech companies to see our facilities at FBMM. We will be happy to provide a guided tour to show our updated research infrastructure.

Please forward this E-mail to persons that might be interested but are not in this list.

Please inform me, if you would like to have private discussion with Dr. Marsavelski. This would be possible before or after her lecture.

With Best Regards,

Kristian Koski, Ph.D.

Senior Researcher

Biocenter Oulu and

Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine,

University of Oulu,

Aapistie 7A,

90220 Oulu