When: May 28, 2025 at 11:00–12:00
Where: Lauren 2 lecture hall, Medisiina D
Title: Intracellular GTP gradients: an unrecognized regulator of cancer progression.

Abstract: In this seminar, Dr. Nikiforov will discuss how alterations in the biosynthesis of guanosine triphosphate (GTP)—a fundamental but relatively understudied nucleotide—affect key properties of metastatic melanoma cells, including activity of G-proteins, invasion, and metastasis. The data will be presented on how alterations in the biosynthesis of a fundamental, and yet relatively understudied molecule, nucleotide guanosine triphosphate (GTP), controls multiple properties of metastatic melanoma cells, including motility, invasion and metastasis. Further, he will describe the construction and characterization of genetically encoded ratiometric fluorescent sensors of free intracellular GTP.  For the first time, these sensors made possible the visualization of spatio-temporal changes in GTP levels in live cells and shed light on the molecular mechanisms regulating cancer cell invasion.

About the speaker: Dr. Mikhail Nikiforov is a Professor of Pathology with tenure at the Duke University School of Medicine and a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Duke Pratt School of Engineering. He earned his BS/MS degrees from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1992 and received a Ph.D. in mammalian genetics from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1997.

Dr. Nikiforov’s research focuses on identifying and pharmacologically targeting the metabolic vulnerabilities of cancer cells, with a particular emphasis on GTP and lipid metabolism. His team uses metastatic melanoma and multiple myeloma as model systems—two malignancies for which the metabolic drivers of tumor progression are not well understood and for which no curative treatments currently exist.

His work has been published in Blood, Leukemia, Nature Methods, Cancer Cell, Nature Communications, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and other leading journals.