Professor

of

Chemistry & Biochemistry

Biochemistry Lab Experiments: Over the past several years, I and others have worked to develop and/or modify various biochemistry lab experiments for undergraduate students. One project currently under refinement is an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect digoxin.

P-glycoprotein Expression and Function: P-glycoprotein (Pgp) is a membrane-bound protein expressed in a variety of tissues and species. It has been shown to transport a wide variety of molecules from lipids to peptides. The protein becomes over-expressed upon repeated exposure to chemotherapeutic drugs; this is one of the causes of multidrug resistance. The increased levels of Pgp are actually working to transport the chemo drugs out of cells.

I am interested in learning more about types of steroids that this protein transports as well as the normal mechanism of expression of Pgp. Students who work on this project will learn cell culture, Western blotting, RNA isolation, RT-PCR, and/or hplc. This project also incorporates use of skills from biochemistry lab courses such as protein assays, SDS-PAGE, and PCR.