Grant: Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA)

Damilola's research will focus on studying Rab family GTPases and how they interact with their effector proteins, as well as how this can be misregulated in disease. My laboratory has a long standing focus on these enzymes, and has extensively explored how they can be misregulated in aging, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. In my lab he will acquire skills in molecular biology, protein purification, biochemical assays, mass spectrometry, and structural biology. A major focus of this work will be on the study of how binding partners directly interact. This will use a combination of alphafold modelling and HDX-MS to map binding sites, along with a suite of different biochemical and biophysical approaches. These are all skills that are in high demand in the biotechnology sector, and will greatly help expand his experiential learning skills. I confirm I have space for him to undergo a work term in my laboratory for summer of 2024, and will be supervised full time by a graduate student in my lab. I wholeheartedly support Damilola's application for this prestigious award.