Abstract: Series 112, Lecture 7

The Harvey Lectures Series 112 (2016—2017)

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Lecture #7: Thursday, May 18, 2017 — Watch Video of Lecture

Why So Many Ways to Die? The Non-canonical Inflammasome Pathway

Vishva Dixit, MD

Vishva Dixit, MD

Vice President and Staff Scientist, Physiological Chemistry

Genentech, Inc

South San Francisco, California

Dr Dixit's Website

Vishva M. Dixit has made many contributions to biomedicine and his early work on apoptosis is prominent in introductory textbooks of biology and medicine [for a historical perspective see Nature (2008, 453:271-273), Nature Cell Biology (2010, 12:415)] and The Journal of Immunology (2013, 190:3-4).

His laboratory was among the first to: i) show that caspases are components of the death receptor-induced apoptotic pathway; ii) demonstrate that death receptors signal by an entirely novel mechanism of recruiting and activating a death protease (FLICE/caspase-8) by an induced proximity mechanism; iii) identify the mammalian death protease equivalent to the CED3 protein in worms (YAMA/caspase-3) as well as other pro-apoptotic caspases including caspase-6, -7 and -9. iv) show that the death domain-containing molecule MyD88 is a key signaling adaptor; vi) discover paracaspases and metacaspases: two ancient families of caspase-related proteins, one of which plays a key role in MALT lymphoma; vii) discover the non-canonical inflammasome pathway.

He is a Foreign Member, European Molecular Biology Organization, a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.