We have an opening for a Postdoctoral Fellow to work in the field of molecular signaling and peptide-protein recognition. PAR1 plays an important role in platelet activation and blood coagulation, and has been implicated in the pathological processes leading to heart disease and cancer.
Proteolytic cleavage exposes a new N-terminus that activates the receptor in an intramolecular mode.
Cleavage of PAR1 by thrombin can elicit many cellular responses such as platelet aggregation, inflammation, chemotaxis, mitogenesis, apoptosis, and angiogenesis. Macromolecular interactions of the receptors with other regulatory proteins and the relationship of PAR activation with engagement of integrins will also be explored.