Feeding the fire: ubiquitin signalling at the interface of inflammation and metabolism

Host Kirby Swatek

Venue: MSI Small Lecture Theatre, FLS

Abstract:

Methionine-1 (M1)-linked ubiquitin chains (also known as linear ubiquitin) are best known for their essential role in regulation of inflammatory signalling and immune homeostasis. Yet, growing evidence suggests important functions in metabolic regulation. Our work focuses on how the M1-linked ubiquitin machinery, centred on the ubiquitin ligase LUBAC and the deubiquitinase OTULIN, regulates and integrates metabolic and inflammatory signalling pathways. We investigate how M1-linked ubiquitin signalling shapes cellular adaptation to energetic stress and how nutrient excess rewires ubiquitin-dependent signalling to promote inflammation and cell death. Together, these studies explore how M1-linked ubiquitin signalling links immunity and metabolism and what this means for inflammatory and metabolic disease.

Bio:

Rune Busk Damgaard is Associate Professor and Head of the Cell Stress & Inflammation Lab at the Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark (DTU). His research focuses on how ubiquitin modifications regulate signalling pathways and cell-fate decisions during cellular stress, particularly at the intersection of metabolism, inflammation, and cell death, and how dysregulation of these processes contributes to disease. He obtained his PhD in Molecular Immunology from the University of Copenhagen in 2014, followed by postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Professor David Komander at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, University of Cambridge, where he was also a Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College. His work has made fundamental contributions to understanding ubiquitin signalling in immune regulation and inflammatory disease, including the discovery and characterisation of OTULIN as a key regulator of inflammation and immune homeostasis and the identification of OTULIN-Related Autoinflammatory Syndrome. His research has been published in leading journals including Cell, Molecular Cell, EMBO Molecular Medicine, and Cell Death & Differentiation.