Monday, May 8, 2017
9:00 AM
Life Sciences Laboratories Building, Room N410
Dissertation title:  Pore forming protein assembly and the use in nanopore sensing: a study on E. coli proteins ClyA and OmpG
Advisor:  Min Chen

MCB students in the Gierasch and Garman labs at UMass, Amherst, have advanced the understanding of the relationship between protein folding and ligands, very small (~100 daltons in size) molecules which reside in the cell. Ligands were found to guide much larger molecules in the folding process, by recent MCB Alumnus, Karan Hingorani. Misfolded proteins are often the cause of disease, and the findings, by Hingorani, and confirmed by current MCB Program students, Mathew Metcalf and Derrick Deming have important implications in new therapies and pharmacological treatments of disease. Read more

Nils Pilotte, a 4th year student in the University of Massachusetts Amherst Molecular and Cellular Biology Ph.D. Program, recently received a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations Phase II Award in the amount of $424,874.  This award, which was received as a follow-up to a 2013 Phase I award in the amount of $100,000, will expand upon his preliminary proof-of-concept research, and aims to enable low-cost, high-throughput, sustainable surveillance for the presence of tropical parasites through the molecular monitoring of hematophagic insect excreta/feces (E/F).  Through the sampling and analysis of E/F rather than whole insects, the biological mass of samples can be greatly reduced, minimizing the limitations imposed by the presence of large concentrations of “polluting” DNA, and allowing for the improved throughput of testing.  Furthermore, as non-vector insects which have taken a parasite-containing blood meal rid themselves of parasite material through deposition in the E/F, such testing expands the pool of material suitable for analysis.  Preliminary work has demonstrated the adaptability of this methodology to the detection of both filarial and malarial parasites, and Nils will work to fine tune these testing platforms with the goal of developing recommendations for the programmatic implementation of this alternative approach to infection monitoring and surveillance.

Plant genome scientist and evolutionary biologist, Madelaine Bartlett, in collaboration with researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, N.Y. and the University of North Carolina, is looking at ways to better understand evolutionary genetics of plants.  The National Science Foundation has awarded a four-year $4 million grant ($812,000 to Bartlett) for the team to study genetic regulation of plant stem cells and their role in higher fruit yields.  Read more