Mentor Areas
My main interest is to study biology at the level of its macromolecular machines and to gain a quantitative biophysical understanding of how these machines drive important cell biological processes. To do so, we develop cutting edge microscopy tools. Currently, we are interested in protein aggregation in neurodegenerative diseases as well as nuclear structure and how this structure regulates gene expression.
Description:
The goal of this project is to determine the early changes to tau multimerization state in neurodegenerative disease. Tau aggregation into neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) is a pathological hallmark of several neurodegenerative diseases. Yet, the mechanisms by which tau aggregation contributes to disease progression is poorly understood. It is thought that small, soluble multimeric tau species, not the NFTs, cause toxicity. However, to date, it has not been possible to visualize these small multimeric species in intact cells due to the lack of suitable imaging tools. In the last decade, fluorescence microscopy has undergone a revolution. Super-resolution microscopy, which breaks the diffraction limit and extends the spatial resolution of light microscopy to nanometer length scales was recognized by the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014. We will use this cutting edge technology to study the early steps in the aggregation pathway of tau in intact cells.
The undergraduate will be in charge of both biochemical validation of cell lines we will generate to study tau as well as in learning the super-resolution microscopy tools to image tau at high resolution.
Preferred Qualifications
None
Details:
Preferred Student Year
First-year, Second-Year, Junior, Senior
Project Academic Year
2023–2024
Volunteer
Yes
Paid
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to paying students they engage in their research, regardless of their work-study eligibility.Work Study
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to hiring work-study-eligible students.