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Current laboratory members (left to right): Bethany Lee (BCMB, Class of 2020), Amy Zheng (PhD student), Merc Kemeh (PhD student), Dr. Noel Lazo, Henrique Lemos-Brito (BCMB, Class of 2020), Timothy Soldano (BCMB, Class of 2020),  Ibrahim Ozgenc (BCMB, Class of 2020), and Saadman Islam (BCMB, BA/MS expected in 2020). 

OUR MAIN AREA OF INTEREST IS  PROTEIN MISFOLDING AND SELF-ASSEMBLY ASSOCIATED WITH DISEASE

Proteins of interest:
Amyloid proteins associated with amyloidoses including the islet amyloid polypeptide in type 2 diabetes, the amyloid-β protein in Alzheimer’s disease, and lysozyme in systemic amyloidosis; keratins and collagens in the skin blistering disease called epidermolysis bullosa.

Methods:
We use a variety of biophysical and biochemical techniques including nuclear magnetic resonance, circular dichroism, limited proteolysis/mass spectrometry, electron microscopy and molecular modeling to probe the folding and self-assembly of proteins associated with disease.

LAB NEWS…

Fall 2018:

  • Val’s paper on the use of circular dichroism to probe the IDE-dependent degradation of insulin is now published (#48 in our publications page).  This article received commentary in the literature.  You can read the commentary here:  http://www.bioscirep.org/content/38/6/BSR20181555

Summer 2018:

  • Val presented a poster on the characterization of the insulin-degrading enzyme by a novel technique called Microfluidic Modulation Spectroscopy at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Protein Society held in Boston.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Amy presented a poster on the use of Microfluidic Modulation Spectroscopy to elucidate early events in amyloid formation at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Protein Society held in Boston.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Congratulations to Claire for completing her accelerated BA/MS degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.  Two articles from her work are now in print (#46 and #47 in our publications page).

Spring 2018:

  • Amy’s paper on the mechanistic studies of the inhibition of insulin fibrillation is now out in the Journal of Physical Chemistry B (#45 in our publications page).