Dr. GPCR Podcast

About Dr. Gregory Tall

"Dr. Gregory Tall earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from U.T. Southwestern Medical Center with Bruce Horazdovsky, Ph.D. They worked on the interactome of yeast and mammalian Rab5 homologs including identification of Rab5 GEFs. In 2000, Dr. Tall moved upstairs to conduct his postdoctoral work on heterotrimeric G proteins and the novel interactor, Ric-8 with Alfred Gilman, M.D. Ph.D. In 2007, Dr. Tall joined the faculty in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, there establishing his lab and major research directions. Dr. Tall moved to the University of Michigan in 2016 as an Associate Professor of Pharmacology and is a current active member of the department.

The current goals of the Tall lab are to understand the basic mechanism by which Ric-8 proteins fold all heterotrimeric G protein alpha subunits, to exploit a Ric-8-based technology to purify recombinant G proteins and to use the G proteins in assays to explore the mechanisms of action of the 33-member adhesion GPCR family or Family B2 GPCRs. We found that adhesion GPCRs are activated by a tethered peptide agonist mechanism that differed from the common example known at the time, protease activated receptors (PARs). PARs have an N-terminal leader sequence that is clipped by exogenous proteases to reveal a new N-terminus that serves as the tethered agonist. Adhesion GPCRs pre-cleave themselves and the two resultant fragments of the receptor remain together to conceal the tethered peptide agonist. Mechanical dissociation of the two fragments aided by protein binding ligands and cell movement serves to decrypt the tethered agonist for binding to its orthosteric site. Our current goals are to explore this mechanism in detail and to understand how it may happen for the 33 adhesion GPCRs in complex physiological contexts…one being our discovery that GPR56 is the platelet receptor that senses collagen and shear force to initiate the platelet activation program. Dr. Tall has been continuously funded by the NIH since receiving an early RO1 award at Rochester. He has continued funding at Michigan through the MIRA R35 program. Dr. Tall has presented his work at 59 invited seminars including national and international meetings and academic departmental seminars."

Dr. Gregory Tall on the web

• The Tall Lab

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