Graduate Mentors
July 6, 2020
Michelle Brimecombe
Brimecombe’s interests are in sport management specifically related to the business side of sport, organizational behavior, player development, sport marketing, brand management and sport policy. Educational background Ph.D., Florida State University, 2012 M.S., Georgia Southern University, 2004 B.S., University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 2002 Courses taught PRST 2010: Sport Management PRST 2281: Business of Sport and Recreation PRST 3185: Sport Economics and Finance PRST 3400: Sport and Recreation Marketing PRST 3282: Governance and Policy of Sport PRST 8100: Sport and Recreation Marketing…
June 1, 2020
Olga J. Baker
May 18, 2020
David Braun
Carbohydrate partitioning is the process whereby photoassimilates are distributed from their site of synthesis in leaves to the rest of the plant. Control of carbohydrate partitioning is crucial for plant growth and development, and underlies all aspects of crop yield, including cellulose deposition in cell walls and sucrose accumulation in storage organs, such as the stems of sugarcane or sweet sorghum. For most plants, fixed carbon, in the form of sucrose, is loaded into the phloem and transported from leaves to non-photosynthetic tissues, such as stems, roots, and fruits. This process is well characterized at the physiological, biochemical, and anatomical…
Sep. 7, 2019
Lloyd W. Sumner
The research focus of the Sumner lab includes the development of cutting-edge technologies for large-scale biochemical profiling of plant metabolites (i.e. metabolomics) and integrating these with other omics data. These technologies are then applied in a symbiotic manner for plant gene discovery, gene characterization and the elucidation of mechanistic responses to external stimuli; especially related to plant specialized metabolism or plant natural products biosynthesis. Technology enables the biology and the biology drives technology development. Current technology development projects include the development of a sophisticated and integrated ensemble including UHPLC-MS-SPE-NMR for the systematic and biologically driven annotation of plant metabolomes. This…
Sep. 7, 2019
Lesa J. Beamer
Educational background Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Courses taught Problem-Based Learning (PBL) for 1st and 2nd year medical students Graduate Level Structural Biology for the Life Sciences…
Sep. 6, 2019
John J. Tanner
Educational background Ph.D. Chemistry, Brown University, 1988…
Sep. 6, 2019
Michael S. Chapman
Structural Virology – Host Interactions: The US Food & Drug Administration has now approved two gene replacement therapies: Luxturna™ (2017), a treatment for congenital blindness and Zolgenesma™ (2019) for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). 1,500 SMA infants have now been treated for this debilitating and fatal genetic disorder. These, and treatments for hemophilia and other diseases, use recombinant rAAV vectors to deliver DNA to afflicted cells. Our structure-function analyses provide a fundamental understanding of the atomic interactions key to cell entry, trafficking, and immune neutralization. These foundations are needed for the engineering of gene therapy vectors that are efficient and specific enough…
Sep. 6, 2019
Xiao Heng
The 5′-cap of HIV-1 incompletely spliced mRNAs undergoes hypermethylation by the host trimethylguanosine synthase, resulting in the formation of a trimethylguanosine (TMG) cap. Disrupting this process markedly diminishes HIV infectivity, as the TMG-cap enables the viral RNA to access a specialized translation pathway, ensuring sustained viral protein synthesis when the host’s global translation pathway is dampened in response to the stress induced by pathogen invasion. Our lab focuses on characterizing the RNA structures and molecular interactions necessary for the cap epigenetic modification, using a variety of biophysical techniques including NMR spectroscopy, cryoEM, small angle X-ray scattering and isothermal titration calorimetry.
Sep. 4, 2019
Shuangyu Xu
Educational background Ph.D., North Carolina State University M.S., University of Missouri-Columbia Courses taught PRST 2060: Tourism Management PRST 4260/7260: Sustainable Tourism PRST 4357/7357: Domestic and International Tourism: Resources, Market, and Impacts PRST 8400: Constructs of Leisure…
Sep. 2, 2019
Shi-jie Chen
Education BS Physics Zhejiang University China PhD Physics University of California, San Diego San Diego, Calif. Research Area Prediction of RNA structure and functions and computational design of RNA-based therapeutic strategies. Research Description We develop computer models for biomolecular structure and function with focus on RNA molecules. Biological molecules are large organic molecules composed of hundreds or thousands of atoms bound together by covalent bonds into a chain-like structure. One of the best known challenges in biology is to understand how biomolecules fold properly into compact structures to perform biological functions and how they misfold to cause disease. We develop…