There are many biological agents in our everyday working and living environments that can lead to infections. If not controlled within the body, these infections can lead to hospitalization or even death. To combat these pathogens, such as bacteria, we can employ anti-biotics. Pathogens can however form resistance over time to these anti-biotics. It is therefore important to learn of new anti-biotics so that strains of pathogens do not exist for which we have no effective anti-biotics. The goal of the project, which was studied during the Summer 2010 EAPSI program, was to develop new proteins which can degrade amino acids specific to bacteria but not humans. These proteins catalyze a chemical reaction to do this and are known as enzymes. Enzymes are also used in a variety of other common uses such as laundry detergent, fabric production, and production of medicine. The enzymes studied in this project could extend beyond just anti-biotics, having use in medicine for the central nervous system as well. Therefore, understanding how these enzymes operate is of great importance for general human health. The results of the study from Summer 2010 EAPSI program in South Korea are not yet fully complete, but a change in the activity of these enzymes was noticed. Further work will have to be carried out in South Korea to accomplish this task. My lab mates back in South Korea are very capable of finishing this work. My lab mates and I successfully created novel enzymes, not known to previously exist and noticed a change in enzyme activity. Thus I would consider this a successful research project which can be continued by my lab mates back in South Korea. Shown in Figure-1 is a SDS-PAGE gel which indicates that the enzymes of interest were successfully produced. Enzymes are in blue color. The protein ladder in the lane to the far left is a lane that contains a collection of proteins of known size which run in linear order so that the enzymes of interest can be identified to be the correct size. I would like to thank the following people from South Korea in Seoul National University that were of great assistance both in and out of the lab as well as my research advisor: Dr. Romas Kazlauskas Dr. Byung-Gee Kim Dr. Seo-Juhyun Dr. Minho Cha Hyun Jong Kang Wan-kyu Soyeon Ahran Chae June HoPark Jae-Hun Lee Eunok Jung Changmin Sung Ilhyang Park Yun Hee Choi Hae-min Park
