Professor Sebastian Glatt from the Małopolska Center of Biotechnology of the Jagiellonian University has received the 2024 FNP Prize in the field of life sciences for the determination of the structure and function of the Elongator complex, which affects the accuracy of protein biosynthesis.

Glatt was born in 1981 in Vienna. In 2004, he graduated with a degree in genetics and microbiology from the University of Vienna. This was also where he defended his doctorate (with distinction) three years later. Between 2008 and 2015, he conducted research at the Structural and Computational Biology Unit of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg. Since September 2015, he has been in charge of his independent Max Planck Research Group at the Małopolska Center of Biotechnology of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. During this time, he has initiated and maintained fruitful scientific collaborations with leading laboratories around the world, including groups in Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Australia. He is the author of 58 publications, including original articles and review articles published in the most prestigious scientific journals such as Nature, Cell, Science Advances, Nature Structural Molecular Biology, Nature Plants, Nature Communications, and EMBO Journal. Glatt has received many prestigious awards and grants, including the ERC Consolidator Grant (2020), the NCN Award (2021), the Parnas Prize (2023), the EMBO Installation Grant, the City of Krakow Award (2020, together with his team), three Jagiellonian University Rector’s Awards, as well as grants from the Foundation for Polish Science (FIRST TEAM and TEAM-TECH Core Facility) and the National Science Centre. Glatt is a member of numerous organizations, such as the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the Committee of Crystallography of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Young Academy of Europe.

Glatt is an excellent organizer of science. He serves as deputy director for science at the Małopolska Center of Biotechnology and has established the National Centre for cryo-EM at the SOLARIS National Synchrotron Radiation Centre in Krakow.

Glatt’s research focuses on nucleic acid metabolism, gene expression, modification of RNA molecules, and regulation of protein synthesis in cells. His studies combine methods of structural biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, biophysics, and cell biology.

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Professor Sebastian Glatt has received the 2024 FNP Prize in the field of life sciences for the determination of the structure and function of the Elongator complex, which affects the accuracy of protein biosynthesis.

Glatt is an international leader in structural biology, particularly in the area of protein synthesis and the translation of genomic information into functional proteins. Although every cell in the body has exactly the same genetic material, different cell types produce completely different sets of proteins. It is the cells that strictly control and regulate which genes will undergo expression, leading to specific patterns of protein production. These regulatory processes involve a large number of components, enzymes, and protein assemblies. One of them is the Elongator complex. This macromolecular complex, found in all eukaryotic cells (animals, plants, fungi, and protists), is responsible for specific chemical modifications of transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules. These tRNA molecules are crucial in the translation process: they deliver specific amino acids to the ribosomes, where protein biosynthesis takes place, to allow their incorporation into newly formed proteins.

Using advanced visualization techniques, such as X-ray crystallography and cryogenic electron microscopy, Glatt and his team determined several three-dimensional structures of the Elongator complex at work. This made it possible to determine the biochemical activity and mechanism of action of this complex, as well as the function of its individual subunits. Moreover, knowledge of the spatial architecture of the protein makes it possible to predict how various disruptions to this structure, caused by mutations, can affect the functioning of the cell and, consequently, of the entire organism. The mutations of the Elongator complex that are found in humans are linked to various neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases (such as ataxia), as well as cancer (for example, breast cancer). This makes the Elongator complex a very intriguing target for novel drugs.

Therefore, thorough understanding of the cellular mechanisms studied by Glatt will be of great clinical importance, as it paves the way for the development of new approaches used in diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases.

 

Fot. Magdalena Wiśniewska-Krasińska

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