Delaware Biotechnology Institute UD bioengineer gets NSF Career Award for genetic research Anne Skaja Robinson, chemical engineering, is the recipient of a National Science Foundation Career Award for her research into the molecular characteristics of damaged protein. Last, January, Robinson received the DuPont Young Professor Grant, which provided the matching funds needed for the first year of the NSF award. With these two awards and other matching funds, Robinson was able to purchase two essential pieces of equipment, a thermocycler and a computer for performing kinetic modeling. Because protein is one of the building blocks of all living cells, anything that keeps it from forming correctly can result in cell defects.
Protein is made when long, linear chains of amino acids fold into precise shapes.
If these shapes are formed properly, protein can carry out functions such as delivering oxygen to cells, strenghthening the immune system and helping break down food during digestion. Complex molecules called ribosomes guide the formation of linear amino acid chains from genetic messages within the cell. Sometimes, in the folding of the protein from its linear chain to its final shape, side chains are created and aggregate or cluster, causing a misfolding and a disfunctional protein. The thermocycler replicates the chain reactions that produce the amino acid chain allowing researchers to see how changes to the DNA sequence affect damaged protein. Robinson and her graduate students are working with a protein called the P22 tailspike, known to be especially susceptible to aggregation leading to misfolding.