CBI Trainees

CBI trainees come to Illinois from highly regarded undergraduate programs, nationwide. Regardless of their undergraduate majors, they have in common the potential to perform cutting-edge discipline-spanning work at the interface of chemistry and biology.

2006-2008 Trainees	Home Department	CBI Mentor
Quin Christensen Research Description: Lipoate is a necessary cofactor for several enzymes involved in oxidative and single carbon metabolism in aerobes. Mice deficient in lipoate biosynthesis perish during embryogenesis.  Lipoic acid (Thioctic Acid) biosynthesis has recently been elucidated in Escherichia coli .  The lipoyl domain is modified by octanoate, which is then converted to lipoate by a radical SAM mechanism.  The lipoyl domain can also be modified with free lipoic acid via a scavenge pathway.  The goal of my project is to begin to examine the diversity of lipoyl domain modification in other organisms.  This will be done using genetic, bioinformatic, and biochemical tools available.	Microbiology	John Cronan
Kristin Finch Research Description: oly(ADP-ribose)glycohydrase (PARG) plays an important role in the degradation of poly(ADP-ribose) that serves as an initiator for DNA repair response after acute damage associated with neurodegeneration and ischemia. To date there are no known inhibitors that are both cell permeable and enzyme specific; however, a class of novel inhibitors has been identified that could allow the evaluation of PARG inhibition in cell culture and in vivo. A second-generation library of inhibitors have been synthesized in order to find more potent inhibitors, and cell permeability is being analyzed through biochemical assays including western blot and microscopy.	Chemistry	Paul J. Hergenrother
Ian Gut Research Description: Determining the effects and mechanisms of nisin on Bacillus anthracis and the effects of nisin on Bacillus anthracis and macrophage interactions.	Microbiology	Steven Blanke Wilfred van der Donk
Raymond Morales Research Description: Topoisomerases are ubiquitous and essential enzymes involved in a range of cellular activities from chromosome segregation to gene transcription. In recent years, these molecular machines have become a target for cancer treatments. Our lab contains a library of the clones from the mesophile Methanosarcina acetivorans that include the topoisomerases from this organism. As the largest sequenced genome among Archaea, M. acetivorans contains a diverse array of proteins. In some instances, Archaeal proteins correlate well with Eukarya or Bacteria. In others, novel activity has been discovered specific to the organism. We plan to functionally characterize these Archaeal topoisomerases to determine the residues that are required for catalytic activity and to make evolutionary inferences about the relationships amongst the domains of life.	Microbiology/Medical Scholar	Isaac K.O. Cann
Alex Parent Research Description: The androgen receptor (AR) is a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily and plays a significant role in the development of male sexual characteristics. AR plays an integral part in the formation and growth of prostate cancer, traditional prostate cancer therapy centering on inhibition of this nuclear receptor. Although initial treatment with androgen ablation therapy produces positive results in prostate cancer patients, most eventually lapse into a state of hormone refractory prostate cancer, for which there is no substantive treatment. Consequently, there is a need for new molecular approaches to AR inhibition. My project will focus on one of these approaches, namely, disruption of the AR/coactivator complex through the design and synthesis of small molecule-coactivator binding inhibitors.	Chemistry (Organic) Medical Scholars Program	John Katzenellenbogen
Kara Smith Research Description: Poly (lactide-co-glycolide) microspheres and microcapsules show great promise as biodegradable controlled-release drug delivery systems for therapeutic proteins. However, PLGA degradation byproducts can lower the pH of the microenvironment, thus affecting protein stability. My research focuses on the potential stability benefits of using aqueous-core PLGA microcapsules for protein delivery.	Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering	Daniel Pack

2005-2007 Trainees	Home Department	CBI Mentor
Alexis Black Research Description: Transfer RNAs are the key to ensuring that the translation mechanism works smoothly and keeping the genetic code intact during protein synthesis. The aminoacyl synthetases charge tRNAs with the correct amino acid which is added to the growing polypeptide chain at the ribosome. The binding of the tRNA to the synthetase has been studied statically, but there are still many questions about how the tRNA is recognized by its cognate synthetase. Using bioinformatics and state of the art molecular dynamics simulation, I am studying the binding of the tRNAAsp to the Asp-aminoacyl synthetase according to interactions between the anticodon loop of the tRNA and the anticodon binding domain of the synthetase. This will hopefully lead to finding the physical pathway by which tRNA is recognized and bound to the synthetase.	Chemistry (Chemical Biology)	Zaida Luthey-Schulten
Ben Circello Research Description: My research focuses on the isolation and characterization of phosphonate biosynthetic gene clusters. In order to identify these clusters in organisms available sequence data was used to construct a series of degenerate PCR primers which act as probes. Environmental soil isolates were considered a large possible reservoir and were screened using these primers. A large number of positives was obtained (~65). Of these, several are being examined further using phosphorus NMR and cosmid library construction.	Microbiology	William Metcalf