EKoculi-01
Ribosome Biogenesis
Dr. Eda Koculi
Health, human disease & diagnostics
Preferred major field of study or minimum required skills
The prospective student must have completed organic chemistry 1 and 2, and have a GPA of higher than 3.0
Scholarly significance/intellectual merit
Many pathogenic bacteria are resistant to present day antibiotics and novel antibiotics are of great public heath interests. Ribosome assembly has been suggested as a novel antibiotic target. The RNA structures of the intermediates in ribosome assembly remain largely unknown. The determination of the RNA structures of the ribosome assembly intermediates will provide insights into the ribosome assembly process. These insights will inform the development of completely novel classes of antibiotics that target the ribosomal intermediates instead of the correctly assembled ribosome. Moreover, incorrectly assembled ribosomes have been implicated in a number of human diseases, and ribosome assembly has been targeted for cancer therapies.
Research question(s)
The goal of this research program is to map the ribosomal RNA structural rearrangements mediated by DEAD-box RNA helicase, DbpA, during the Escherichia coli ribosome assembly process. The ultimate objective of our research is to combine structural and biochemical data and utilize these data for the discovery and development of small molecule inhibitors. The small molecule inhibitors will offer translational potential as targeted therapeutics to treat bacterial infections.
Methods/techniques/instruments to be learned/utilized
Protein purification, Illumina Next Generation Sequencing, Nanopore Sequencing, RNA-protein interaction assays.