Biochemistry Doctoral Student Jordan Johnson Studies Ribosomal Translation
鈥淚t feels great. I was really nervous about getting it. I hadn鈥檛 actually started my Ph.D. project yet when I filled out the application, so receiving this was a huge relief.鈥�
Jordan Johnson is a second-year biochemistry Ph.D. student at the 葫芦影业鈥檚 College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, under the mentorship of Yuhong Wang, professor of biology and biochemistry.
Johnson鈥檚 potential in research, her communication and her career development thus far gave her a competitive advantage when applying for the .
鈥淭here are a lot of molecular biophysics techniques that I don鈥檛 know about, but I would love to learn,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 will get to pick the brains of the people around me, learning about what they do. For part of this fellowship, I have to take a molecular biophysics class at Rice University that I鈥檓 looking forward to.鈥�
The fellowship provides Johnson three years of funding for her research at UH. The program, funded by the National Institutes of Health and managed by the Gulf Coast Consortia, chooses highly qualified applicants from six prestigious Houston-area universities. It provides biophysical training, along with access to resources and leading scientists at Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, 葫芦影业, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, MD Anderson Cancer Center and University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
Course requirements include one semester of graduate-level molecular biophysics, weekly seminar attendance, completion of a research ethics course, monthly trainee meetings and attendance at a yearly research symposium.
鈥淛ordan is hard-working and detail-oriented,鈥� said Wang. 鈥淚f she is not satisfied with the results, she takes extra time and effort. She searches for and reads literature to improve her experiments.鈥�
In 2018, Wang鈥檚 Ph.D. student Miriam Gavriliuc was awarded the same fellowship.
Protein Study Could Lead to Neurological Disease Breakthroughs
Johnson鈥檚 research focuses on a protein called elongation factor thermal unstable,
or EF-Tu.
For EF-Tu to release amino acids, the protein must hydrolyze a molecule called guanosine
triphosphate, known to researchers as GTP. The process of hydrolyzing, Johnson said,
is basically using water to remove one of GTP鈥檚 phosphates, which in turn creates
energy.
鈥淚 want to look at how EF-Tu moves when it hydrolyzes GTP to release the amino acid,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 also want to know if mutating the area where GTP binds will have an effect, because we do know that that mutations in EF-Tu can cause diseases, such as Huntington鈥檚 disease, ADHD, and epilepsy, and can cause intellectual disability and depression.鈥�
Johnson also wants to further investigate the force EF-Tu gives off when it hydrolyzes GTP.
鈥淭o observe force generation,鈥� Johnson writes in her application, 鈥淚 will use a technique developed by our lab called FIRMS (force-induced remnant magnetization spectroscopy) that can accurately measure the force EF-Tu produces when performing its function.鈥�
She further writes that understanding how this protein works will be beneficial to create drug therapies for the neurological disorders and diseases linked to mutations in elongation factors.
Analysis of EF-Tu using the lab鈥檚 methods would also allow the team to discover whether their method is efficient and if it could be used on other proteins to develop new tools.
- Rebeca Trejo, College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics