“Endoplasmic Reticulum Associated Degradation and Protein Conformational Diseases: Lessons from Model Systems and Novel Therapeutics” will be presented by Jeffrey L. Brodsky, Avinoff Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh.

Prof. Jeffrey Brodsky holds the Avinoff Chair in Biological Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and joined the faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh in 1994 after completing his post-doctoral research with Prof. Randy Schekman. Prof. Brodsky is on the editorial boards of three journals, has published more than 170 scientific papers, and holds two patents, and in 2013 he was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The Brodsky laboratory wishes to define how misfolded proteins are identified and then destroyed in the cell. Early work in the laboratory led to the identification of the ER associated degradation (ERAD) pathway, which serves as a “protein quality control” apparatus to clear aberrant proteins that enter the secretory pathway. Thus far, the ERAD pathway has been linked to nearly 70 diseases.