NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2015

Liang Alexandria D, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2015, Research Using Biological Collections. The fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow to take transformative approaches to grand challenges in biology that employ biological collections in highly innovative ways. The title of the research plan for this fellowship to Alexandria Deliz Liang is "Controlling the function of metal-dependent proteins inside living cells." This fellowship is jointly funded by NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering. The postdoctoral fellow will conduct two years of research abroad at the host institution, the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in the United Kingdom. The sponsoring scientist for this fellowship is Jason Chin. The fellowship research seeks to evaluate the role of proteins in living cells. Proteins provide essential functions within living cells where individual proteins work together to regulate cellular functions. Traditionally it has only been possible to isolate and study proteins by reconstituting them in vitro, which is not their natural state. Because living cells are complex, examining the function of an individual protein in its natural environment presents diverse challenges. Almost half of all proteins require metal coordination for function. However, the ability to evaluate these metal-binding units inside living cells is limited. New tools are needed to study metal-dependent proteins (metalloproteins) in living systems. The approach employed here is to develop a system for temporally controlling metalloprotein function inside living cells by genetically incorporating unnatural amino acids into metalloproteins beginning with the iron-containing protein, mitoNEET, in single cells from model organisms. A plant pathogen (Ralstonia solanacearum), a flowering plant (Arabidopsis thaliana), and mice from biological collections are being used to provide mitoNEET genes and cell cultures. These materials are critical for comparison of NEET proteins from different organisms. Increasing the set of tools available for evaluating proteins inside living cells enables more productive use of cell cultures from collections around the world. The Fellow is pursuing interdisciplinary research that addresses challenges in bioinorganic chemistry using advanced tools from chemical biology in one of the foremost molecular biology institutes in the world. This international research opportunity furthers international collaboration benefitting both the United States and the host institution. Research abroad enriches these scientific pursuits, provides immersion in an alternative educational and research setting, and promises new tools to address interdisciplinary studies relating to molecular biology.