Warwick Medical School Inaugural Lecture Series

Professor Mohan Balasubramanian Date: 26 March 2015 Location: Lecture Theatre, Medical Teaching Centre, Warwick Medical School Time: Welcome reception starting at 11:30. The lecture will start at 12:00. Register online

The 3Cs: Cricket, Chemistry and Cytokinesis Professor Balasubramanian will discuss his research on understanding the mechanism of the terminal step in the life of a cell. This process, termed cytokinesis, dictates the location where a cell will divide. The apparatus that causes cell division is an exquisite machine that generates the appropriate forces for cell division. Remarkably, it does so only after the genetic material is fully segregated to the two daughters. The cell division machine (aka cleavage furrow, cell division ring, actomyosin ring, cytokinetic furrow) works in a manner analogous to the muscle, in that actin filaments and the myosin II motor generate the constrictive forces. He will describe how a combination of experimental and theoretical approaches are providing new insight into several aspects of this fundamental cellular process.