
Roberto Dominguez, PhD
Professor
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728 Clinical Research Building
415 Curie Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-573-4559
Lab: 215-573-0983
Fax: 215-573-2273
droberto@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
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Roberto Dominguez, PhD
Professor Of Physiology
Other Perelman School of Medicine Affiliations
Degrees & Education
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PhD, Pasteur Institute and Paris-Sud University, France, 1996
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MS, Odessa State University, formerly-USSR, 1987
Honors
2006-2010 NIH Study Section (MSFC),
2006 Co-Chair Motility Subgroup of the Biophysical Societ
2002 American Heart Association, Established Investigator Award
1999 American Heart Association, Grant-in-Aid Junior Investigator Award
1998 March of Dimes, Basil O’Connor Scholar
1992 Fellow of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
1989 Fellow of the Société Française de Belgique
Member of the Editorial Board of Biophysical Journal
Professional Affiliations
The American Society for Cell Biology
American Crystallographic Association
Biophysical Society
American Heart Association
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Research Description
The actin cytoskeleton plays an essential role in multiple cellular functions, including cytokinesis, vesicular trafficking and the maintenance of cell shape and polarity. To accomplish these functions, the cytoskeleton undergoes constant remodeling into various forms of structural and functional networks, such as lamellipodia, filopodia, stress fibers and focal adhesions. Remodeling of the cytoskeleton is a tightly regulated process, involving hundreds of actin-binding and signaling proteins. The main focus of the research in our lab is to understand the molecular basis for how protein-protein interaction networks bring together cytoskeleton scaffolding, nucleation, elongation, and signaling proteins to accomplish specific cellular functions.
Our primary research tool is protein X-ray crystallography. The atomic “snapshots” resulting from the X-ray crystal structures of proteins provide a wealth of knowledge, but lack information about the dynamic aspects of protein-protein interactions. To obtain this kind of information we also use a host of other approaches, including mutagenesis, bio-informatics, biophysical and biochemical methods.
Click here for a full list of publications.
(searches the National Library of Medicine's PubMed database.)