| Affiliations: | |
| Project Leader: | Behailu Aklilu behailu@tamu.edu Biochemistry and Biophysics |
| Faculty Mentor: | Dorothy Shippen, Ph.D. |
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Meeting Times:
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Friday, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm |
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Team Size:
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3 (Team Full) |
| Open Spots: | 0 |
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Special Opportunities:
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Special opportunities for students include exploring the field of telomeres and telomerase in relation to cancer and aging, participating in scientific meetings and conferences, and earning co-authorship on publications. |
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Team Needs:
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For my research team, I accept undergraduate students who are in their second and/or third year of study (sophomores or juniors) and majoring in genetics or biochemistry. In addition, to be part of my team students should register for 491 Research credit. As students in my team will participate in design, execution, and analysis of experiments, they must be in good academic standing and able to commit to 10-12 hours of research per week, and for at least 3 semesters. In addition, students should have high personal motivation, commitment, self-management, detail-orientation, and ability to take responsibility. Prior laboratory experience in PCR and cloning is advantageous, but not required. |
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Description:
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The ends of eukaryotic linear chromosomes are capped by nucleoprotein structures called telomeres, which protect the termini from progressive chromosome shortening and play essential roles in genome stability and cell proliferation capacity. Interestingly, the telomere itself need to be protected from attrition that is caused by barriers of telomere replication, e.g. G-rich higher order structures, in telomere tracts. We use biochemical, molecular and genetic approaches to study the role of Replication Protein A (RPA); a heterotrimeric, single-stranded DNA-binding protein complex required for multiple processes in eukaryotic DNA metabolism, including replication, repair and recombination; in protecting telomeres tracts from attrition caused by such higher order structures.
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