Dr. Stacia A. Sower (Advisor)
Dr. Paul Tsang
Dr. David Berlinsky

My research involves the scalable production of a novel pituitary glycoprotein hormone found in lampreys. Due to the many logistical limitations of traditional protein purification strategies, I plan to make recombinant forms of the hormone for expression in the methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris. In addition to expressing and purifying this hormone in sufficient quantities for biolocial characterization my work will contribute to the following:

• Expression of individual lamprey GpH subunits for anti-sera generation and ELISA development for quantification of blood hormone levels in sea lampreys

• Mutagenic studies combined with in silico modeling to characerize the mechanics of receptor binding and identify key residues involved in recpetor recognition and activation

• Explore a brand new Pichia strain genetically engineered with a modified glycosylation pathway to limit fungal-like hyper-mannosyl glycans that can inhibit biological function and in vivo studies and contain highly antigenic β-mannose linkages