PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology

University of Guelph, 2019-2023

As a PhD student in the Dawson Lab, I began by examining actin allosteric networks connected to its highly flexible C-terminus. I developed a novel protocol for purifying actin oligomers whose C-termini had been chemically crosslinked, before conducting functional characterization through in vitro motility assays. Structural characterization via cryo-EM was unavailable due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and so I worked hard to bring in silico methods, namely molecular dynamics simulations, into the lab. Having outside guidance and no prior experience, I successfully developed an in silico workflow that allowed me to characterize structural changes associated with chemical crosslinking and amino acid substitutions, observe changes to actin’s interactions with other proteins, and visualize shifts in internal allosteric networks.