• Thursday, April 16, 2026

• 10:00 AM 11:00 AM

• Event room 1, PGCRL (map)

Simon Alberti, Ph.D. —TU Dresden

Title: How cells control multivalent interactions – and what happens when that control fails

Abstract: Biomolecular condensates are widely proposed as organizing principles of cellular biochemistry, yet their selective and tightly regulated formation remains poorly understood given the abundance of multivalent macromolecules in cells. Studies of ribonucleoprotein (RNP) granules, particularly stress-induced RNA assemblies, have shown that while multivalent interactions can drive assembly, they are dynamically controlled by sequence features, conformational states, and regulatory inputs. Building on this, we propose kinetic solubility as a framework in which continuous macromolecular flux and kinetic reset mechanisms suppress persistent interactions, maintaining solubility even under conditions that would favor assembly at equilibrium. Condensates emerge when this balance is locally relaxed, allowing interaction networks to form. More broadly, this view reframes condensates as emergent, kinetically governed states determined by the interplay between interaction persistence and cellular regulation, providing a unifying principle for multivalent organization across biological systems.