Background
Sozanne Solmaz received her MS in biochemistry from the Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany, in 2001 and performed her thesis work with Nobel laureate Robert Huber at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany. She received her PhD in 2006 from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany; her thesis advisor was Nobel laureate Hartmut Michel at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, and she was also supervised by Carola Hunte.
As a postdoctoral researcher with Nobel laureate Gunter Blobel at Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Rockefeller University in New York, she has investigated the structure of the transport channel of the nuclear pore complex. In the fall of 2014, she started as an assistant professor of biological chemistry at Binghamton University and was promoted to associate professor in the fall of 2020.
Summary of research
The cell nucleus is positioned by molecular motors, a process that is essential for brain and muscle development. Human disease mutations of associated proteins cause severe neuromuscular diseases, including spinal muscular atrophy, the most common genetic cause of death in infants. Our lab combines cutting-edge techniques from structural biology, biophysics, biochemistry and cell biology to establish the mechanism for nuclear positioning, as well as the underlying causes for associated neuromuscular diseases. A more recent research focus is the structure-based design of new therapies for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease related to tau protein.
Accepting BCCB graduate students
Representative publications
- Zhao X, Quintremil S, Rodriguez Castro ED, Cui H, Moraga D, Wang T, Vallee RB, Solmaz SR. Molecular mechanism for recognition of the cargo adapter Rab6(GTP) by the dynein adapter BicD2. Life Sci Alliance. 2024 7(7). doi: 10.26508/lsa.202302430.
- Yi J, Zhao X, Noell CR, Helmer P, Solmaz SR, Vallee RB. Role of Nesprin-2 and RanBP2 in BICD2-associated brain developmental disorders. PLoS Genet. 2023 19(3):e1010642. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010642.
- Gibson JM, Cui H, Ali MY, Zhao X, Debler EW, Zhao J, Trybus KM, Solmaz SR, Wang C. Coil-to-α-helix transition at the Nup358-BicD2 interface activates BicD2 for dynein recruitment. Elife. 2022 11. doi: 10.7554/eLife.74714
Education
- PhD, Goethe University and Max Planck Institute of Biophysics
- MS, Leibnitz University
Research Interests
- Brain and muscle developmental diseases in infants, including spinal muscular atrophy
- Roles of nuclear pore complexes in brain development
- Structure-based design of therapies for Alzheimer’s disease
- Cytoskeletal motors
- Structural biology, x-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy
Teaching Interests
- Biochemistry and structural biology
