The Biochemistry Department is pleased to report that Professor Julie Forman-Kay has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of her internationally renowned studies of the dynamic structures, interactions and functions of intrinsically disordered proteins. Congratulations!
Professors Julie Forman-Kay, Simon Sharpe, P. Lynne Howell and John Rubinstein were awarded new CFI funds to help bring new technology to SickKids.
Professors Julie Forman-Kay, and Simon Sharpe, received more than $1.6 million to build on the SickKids Structural and Biophysical Core (SBC) facility. These new funds will support critical enhancements to cutting-edge research, knowledge creation, and training across biology and biophysics, including immunogen design for improved […]
It is very hard to understand the effects of disease mutations that are prevalent in intrinsically disordered protein regions (IDRs). In a Perspective published in the December 23, 2020 issue of Cell, a collaborative Toronto team from the groups of Julie Forman-Kay, Alan Moses and Steve Scherer put forward both general and specific hypotheses for how IDR mutations lead to pathology in complex diseases, particularly in autism spectrum […]
In the latest issue of Science the Forman-Kay lab demonstrate that as proteins transition from the bulk solution to a phase separated condensate in a test tube, this regulates their ability to affect translation and deadenylation in the same manner observed in the cell. Partitioning of components of the translational machinery away from the mRNA can block translation while the unique condensate environment can activate deadenylation.
A previous dogma […]
Julie Forman-Kay was among a group of researchers interviewed for the Nature News Feature published on March 14, 2018 entitled “What lava lamps and vinaigrette can teach us about cell biology”.
Like oil in water, the contents of cells can segregate into droplets. It’s called phase separation, and biologists are seeing it everywhere.
FORMAN-KAY, Julie – Molecular Structure & Function Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto
Julie Forman-Kay is the foremost Canadian expert in developing and applying tools to study the structure, interactions and functions of disordered proteins of significant biomedical relevance. Her work has led to scientific understanding of the importance of disordered proteins and links their dynamic properties and biological function, providing a foundation for novel therapeutic approaches. […]
