This award supports cooperative research on Isolation of Iron Binding Protein of Reticulocyte Coated Vesicles between Jonathan Glass of Louisiana State University and Marco Tulio Nunez of the University of Chile. These two scientists have had a long and productive collaboration and in addition, interactions with other researchers in both countries. Because of Glass's expertise in cell biology of iron metabolism, the first two tasks, development of an assay to detect an iron binding protein and its isolation will take place in his laboratory. Rapid progress is expected. Nunez will participate in this phase and then take the assay to Chile where the role of electrochemical gradients on translocation of iron across coated vesicle membranes will be studied. The Chileans have expertise in conduction across lipid bilayers and transport across vesicle membranes not available at LSU. Much of the preliminary work on this project has already been carried out. The collaboration has been productive and it is likely that significant data will be generated. This will add to the small amount of knowledge about iron transport across membranes in reticulocytes. Because the assay development will take place at LSU, work will be carried on in Chile which could not otherwise. This will benefit the university in Chile and the students there while LSU benefits from an experienced Latin American scientist.
