I received a Ph.D. in Microbiology from Cornell University in the laboratory of Valley Stewart. I then worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Robert Schleif at Johns Hopkins University. I really love it here in Lawrence, and find this department to be a wonderful place to work. Current Research Living organisms must have the ability to alter gene expression in response to developmental or environmental cues. Much regulation of gene expression occurs at the level of transcription, the first step in expression.
Transcription regulation can be either negative or positive.
The mechanism of positive regulation becomes even more complex when one imagines that two or more positive regulators can influence the expression of the same gene, at the same time. Given this, we are studying the details of regulation of an operon that requires two simultaneous positive regulators for full gene expression, the L-rhamnose catabolic genes in Escherichia coli . We use a combination of genetic, molecular and biochemical techniques to investigate L-rhamnose regulation. In systems with a single activator protein, the protein directly contacts RNA polymerase. We hope to determine whether both RhaS and CRP directly contact RNA polymerase, or whether one activator functions through the other.