9703707 Parsons The International Research Fellow Awards Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a twelve-month postdoctoral research visit by Dr. Geoffrey B. Parsons to work with Dr. Victor L. J. Tybulewicz at the National Institute for Medical Research in London, England. Dr. Parsons proposes to study an innovative way of assessing the role of a suspected participant, Syk tyrosine kinase, in mouse B cell differentiation and signal transduction. The host lab of Dr. Tybulewizc has created transgenic mice that lack Syk. Using these mice will allow the study of Syk's role in BCR (the antigen receptor of B cells) signaling as well as more long-term tests of B cell function, such as examination of the role of Syk in somatic hypermutation and B cell memory. The experiments they have jointly developed will shed light on how Syk functions in the mature B cell. ***
