Khuloud Jaqaman
Assistant Professor in the Department of Biophysics
Lyda Hill Department of Bioinformatics at UT Southwestern Medical Center
Seminar Information
Using quantitative single-molecule imaging, we are studying the spatiotemporal organization of the receptor tyrosine kinase VEGFR2 (Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor 2) and its interaction partners in endothelial cells. We found that VEGFR2 in unstimulated cells can be mobile or immobile/confined, with mobile molecules undergoing more unligated interactions, which in turn promote the immobile/confined state. The unligated interactions enhance ligand (VEGF) binding, which then stabilizes the interactions further, leading to downstream signaling. In addition, in order to fully characterize inter-receptor interactions in situ, we are developing a mathematical-modeling based framework to derive molecular interaction rates from sub-stoichiometrically labeled single-molecule imaging data.
Dr. Jaqaman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biophysics and the Lyda Hill Department of Bioinformatics at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Jaqaman’s research is focused on understanding the spatiotemporal organization of cell surface receptors and its consequences for cell signaling, with a particular interest in receptors that regulate angiogenesis. Her laboratory utilizes light microscopy, particularly single-molecule and super-resolution imaging, to monitor molecular behavior in its native cellular environment, and develops computer vision and mathematical modeling approaches to quantitate the observed behavior and extract the potentially complex relationships between receptor spatiotemporal organization and signaling.