overview

• I am devoted to equity in higher education and choose teaching undergraduate courses as a tool to bring transformation to the academy. I have experience teaching undergraduate students on two continents which enables me to see student needs from a global perspective. As a teaching faculty, I have successfully integrated research into undergraduate education by establishing a biochemistry laboratory that is dedicated to recruiting undergraduate students, especially students from URM communities, first-generation, LGBTQIA2S+, and women in STEM. I have been studying transition metal coordination chemistry since 2006, and iron biochemistry since 2010. Since I established my own research group in 2017, we have worked on characterizing the newly discovered Fe2+ transport system from pathogenic Brucella abortus, FtrABCD, using UV-Visible, circular dichroism (CD), isothermal titration, differential scanning calorimetry (ITC and DSC), and electrochemical studies. We have recently confirmed the predicted Cu2+ dependent Mn2+ (a Fe2+ mimic) affinity of wild-type periplasmic FtrA and the loss of protein folding stability resulting from protein mutation. FtrB is the second periplasmic component of this proposed oxidation-dependent Fe2+ uptake system and it has been hypothesized to be a new type of cupredoxin. As the co-PI of this research proposal, my group would be responsible for expressing, purifying FtrB proteins (wild-type and mutants) and investigating its Cu2+ affinity, and identifying the residues responsible for metal coordination using ITC. We will be measuring modulation of protein folding stability and structural alterations in FtrB as a result of metal coordination and mutation, using CD and DSC. Finally, we will use spectroelectrochemical method to determine midpoint potential (E1/2) of the FtrB bound Cu2+. The effectiveness of Fe2+ utilization using this FtrABCD system has been tied to bacterial virulence and viability and relies on the ability of FtrB to oxidize Fe2+ for its transport. The result from my lab will be pivotal in validating the function of this system. My lab and I have used the techniques mentioned routinely in the last several years and we have access to all those instrumentations, making the goals for this proposal achievable in a timely manner. Collaboration with Dr. Martin's lab will enable us to perform the cloning and in vitro cell studies. I am a teaching assistant professor at East Carolina University and have a heavy teaching load (4-4) and in the last three years, I have worked with nine undergraduate research students and one graduate student published two papers, and co-authored a federal grant, creating a research-active laboratory environment.