OVERALL

UPDATE: Steve has sadly departed our lab to endeavour into the area of biotechnology, taking up a position at a St. Jude's division here in LA. We will forever be grateful for the impact Steve had on our lab organization, efficiency, productivity.

My daily responsibilities vastly range from the hiring and managing of lab technicians to insuring that all laboratory personals conduct the handling and disposal of hazardous waste and radioactive material procedures within the guidelines and regulation of UCLA policies.

My area of research includes assisting Hoorig Nassanian in her project with DC-SIGN and working with Mike Wolf in screening 30,000 small molecule library using UCLA Molecular Screening Shared Resource (MSSR) core facility.

PROJECT SUMMARY

The professional antigen presenting Dendritic cells (DC) highly expresses a C-type lectin receptor, DC-SIGN. The type II integral membrane protein consists of a hydrophobic transmembrane domain, C-terminal carbohydrate domain and an N-terminal cytoplasmic domain. Within the cytoplasmic domain, multiple internalization and compartmental sorting motifs have been exposed but inadequately studied. The focus of study is concentrated within these motifs.

By utilizing glutathione S-transferase (GST) fusion protein and fluorescent microscopy with compartmental markers, various mutations in the cytoplasmic domain of DC-SIGN were constructed which may shed some light in isolating and identifying interacting partners of DC-SIGN's cytoplasmic region.

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