Prof. Israel Pecht, Ph.D.: "Regulation of mast cells response to immunological stimulus"

Friday, March 9, 2018, 03.30 pm, Hygiene Institute, Lecture Hall 2, Kinderspitalgasse 15, Vienna IX

COLLOQUIUM IN PATHOPHYSIOLOGY, INFECTIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY

» Invitation

Israel Pecht, professor emeritus, Ph.D., has studied physical Chemistry at the Hebrew University and did his PhD at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He pursued his postdoctoral research at the Max-Planck Institut für Physikalische Chemie in Göttingen, Germany.

He joined the Department of Chemical Immunology of the Weizmann Institute of Science where he has studied elementary steps of key biochemical and immunological processes such as antigen recognition by the immune system and its coupling to effector.

He served as chairman of the Executive Committee, Israel Science Foundation (1989-1996); as chairman of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) and as its secretary general (2006-2016). He also served as president (1995-1998) of the European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS); as vice-president and president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics (1995-1999 and 1999-2002). Among his honors and awards, he is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (since 1977) and the Academia Europea, honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2007), of the Swedish Biophysical Society (1980), the Hungarian Society for Immunology (1997), and of the Spanish Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2012). Distinguished Fairchild Scholar at the California Institute of Technology (1981-82). He was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1998) as well as the Honorary Doctorate of the Debrecen University Medical School (1998), Hungary, and of the University of Athens, Greece (2013).

Selected Publications:

• Kinetic evidence for a ligand-binding-induced conformational transition in the T cell receptor. Gakamsky DM, Lewitzki E, Grell E, Saulquin X, Malissen B, Montero-Julian F, Bonneville M, Pecht I. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007. 104: 16639-44
• C3a-derived peptide binds to the type I FcepsilonR and inhibits proximal-coupling signal processes and cytokine secretion by mast cells. Péterfy H, Tóth G, Pecht I, Erdei A. Int Immunol. 2008. 1239-45
• Compartmentalization of the Type I Fc epsilon receptor and MAFA on mast cell membranes. Barisas BG, Smith SM, Liu J, Song J, HagenGM, Pecht I, Roess DA. Biophys Chem. 2007. 126: 209-17
  

Host: Hannes Stockinger