Annual Meeting

Enzymes show off new moves

A 2022 annual meeting session on enzymology
Tadhg Begley Catherine Drennan
By Tadhg Begley and Catherine Drennan
Sept. 30, 2021

Enzymes are responsible for the chemical reactions that enable all forms of life. Whether it’s the archaea living in hot springs, the bacteria deep in our soil, the plants harnessing energy from the sun or all animals, including us humans, we are all united in our reliance on enzymes. 

Understanding enzymatic chemistry enables us to tackle critical health and environmental problems, such as designing new therapeutics for diseases or using unique enzymatic capabilities for bioremediation. However, we have only skimmed the surface of learning the full scope of chemical reactions that are enzymatically catalyzed, the mysterious and intricate mechanisms that can be performed, and the dynamic motions enzymes undergo to accomplish their chemical tasks.

The presentations in this session will cover many exciting developments in enzymology, including recently discovered enzymatic functions, evidence for trapping long-anticipated enzymatic intermediates, insight into how various cofactors can enable unique reactions, and cutting-edge experimental approaches enabling us to understand better how enzymes dynamically function. There’s still a whole lot to learn about how enzymes get their jobs done. 

Keywords: enzymes, enzyme mechanisms, structural biology, biochemistry, radical SAM enzymes, metalloenzymes, natural product biosynthesis

Who should attend: all who are fascinated by how enzymes can use some newly discovered tricks, handy cofactors and dynamic movements to carry out their chemistry

Theme song: “This is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan

This session is powered proteins, cofactors and coffee.

Talks

  • Repairing enzymes using spare parts — Cathy Drennan, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Machinery in motion: New insights into mitochondrial proteostasis — Gabriel Lander, Scripps Research
  • Structural biology of natural product biosynthetic enzymes — Janet Smith, University of Michigan
  • An aerobic strategy for C–H bond functionalization — Jennifer Bridwell–Rabb, University of Michigan
  • Riboflavin catabolism: The destruction of an icon — Tadhg Begley, Texas A&M University
  • Correlated motions in enzymes — Nozomi Ando, Cornell University
  • Nickel pincer nucleotide: Biosynthesis and function — Robert Hausinger, Michigan State University
  • Bacterial biosynthesis of natural products —Katherine Ryan, University of British Columbia
  • Radical SAMs and the vast unexplored chemistry of RiPP natural products —Douglas Alan Mitchell, University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign
  • The biosynthesis of lipoic acid: A saga of death, destruction and rebirth — Squire Booker, Penn State University
  • Unraveling the secrets of radical SAM mechanisms — Joan Broderick, Montana State University
  • How do aerobic organisms solve the oxygen sensitivity problem of [4Fe–4S] in radical SAM enzymes? — Hening Lin, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Cornell University

Learn more

Check out all ten thematic symposia planned for the 2022 ASBMB annual meeting:

Enjoy reading ASBMB Today?

Become a member to receive the print edition four times a year and the digital edition monthly.

Learn more
Tadhg Begley
Tadhg Begley

Tadhg Begley is a professor and chair of chemistry at Texas A&M University.
 

Catherine Drennan

Catherine Drennan is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and a professor of biology and chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
 

Featured jobs

from the ASBMB career center

Get the latest from ASBMB Today

Enter your email address, and we’ll send you a weekly email with recent articles, interviews and more.

Latest in Science

Science highlights or most popular articles

Hope for a cure hangs on research
Essay

Hope for a cure hangs on research

July 17, 2025

Amid drastic proposed cuts to biomedical research, rare disease families like Hailey Adkisson’s fight for survival and hope. Without funding, science can’t “catch up” to help the patients who need it most.

Before we’ve lost what we can’t rebuild: Hope for prion disease
Feature

Before we’ve lost what we can’t rebuild: Hope for prion disease

July 15, 2025

Sonia Vallabh and Eric Minikel, a husband-and-wife team racing to cure prion disease, helped develop ION717, an antisense oligonucleotide treatment now in clinical trials. Their mission is personal — and just getting started.

Defeating deletions and duplications
News

Defeating deletions and duplications

July 11, 2025

Promising therapeutics for chromosome 15 rare neurodevelopmental disorders, including Angelman syndrome, Dup15q syndrome and Prader–Willi syndrome.

Using 'nature’s mistakes' as a window into Lafora disease
Feature

Using 'nature’s mistakes' as a window into Lafora disease

July 10, 2025

After years of heartbreak, Lafora disease families are fueling glycogen storage research breakthroughs, helping develop therapies that may treat not only Lafora but other related neurological disorders.

Cracking cancer’s code through functional connections
News

Cracking cancer’s code through functional connections

July 2, 2025

A machine learning–derived protein cofunction network is transforming how scientists understand and uncover relationships between proteins in cancer.

Gaze into the proteomics crystal ball
In-person Conference

Gaze into the proteomics crystal ball

July 1, 2025

The 15th International Symposium on Proteomics in the Life Sciences symposium will be held August 17–21 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.