This award for International Research Experience for Students (IRES) links Jannette Carey from Princeton University with Czech counterparts from the Institute of Physical Biology at the University of South Bohemia, in Nove Hrady. In the Czech Republic, the IRES program will be headed by Ivana Smatanova and Rudiger Ettrich, with the University's Department of Structure and Function of Proteins. These U.S. and Czech mentors share the goal of contributing to our understanding of the biochemical properties of the E. coli flavoprotein WrbA while providing the undergraduate students they mentor with early career research experience through directed study of the function of the novel WrbA and related proteins.
During the course of the collaborative IRES, the US-Czech team's research plans will engage student participants by providing first hand research experience with growth studies of wild-type and mutant strains, metabolic profiling, enzyme kinetics, x-ray crystallography, and molecular modeling. If successful, the combined efforts of researchers and students are expected to better define the WrbA mechanism and physiological roles, allowing for a detailed picture of structure-function relationships to emerge.
This interdisciplinary IRES program in biomolecular science fulfills the program objective of advancing scientific knowledge and engaging students by enabling experts in the United States and Europe to combine complementary talents and share research resources in areas of strong mutual interest and competence. Broader impacts include early career introduction of U.S. undergraduate students to international expertise and teamwork to better prepare them for the global workforce. By working with the relatively simple organism, E. coli, the results of this U.S.-Czech effort may help explain how membranes detoxify in other organisms. If successful, knowledge of the enzyme WrbA may influence other research in biochemistry, particularly work with the interesting soluble diaphorase enzymes.
