INBRE

With an established record of collaboration on biomedical research projects over the last three years, the PI proposes to continue a collaborative study initiated with the current support of a BRIN Summer Faculty Fellowship with Dr. Tom Kieber-Emmons at UAMS. Utilizing molecular modeling software from Tripos (Sybyl6.9) and Accelrys (InsightII) and Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) workstations housed at Ouachita Baptist University and UAMS, the PI will continue to investigate the specifity of lectins. It is known that lectins affect tumor cell survival, adhesion to the endothelium or extracellular matrix, as well as tumor vascularization and other processes that are crucial for metastatic spread and growth. Deciphering the recognition of DC-sign (a sugar binding protein implicated with HIV) and other lectins will be conducted by conformational analyses of carbohydrates that bind to them. The evaluation of peptide mimetics of carbohydrates identified via modeling and phage display should lead to the development of new vaccines. With the existing computational facilities at UAMS and OBU, including a secure shell network connection between workstations at OBU and the 8-processor SGI Origin (bioinformatics.uams.edu), the researcher will utilize known methodologies and structural databases to continue this study. Future work in this area will continue to involve Ouachita undergraduates during subsequent academic years and summer sessions. With an awarded sabbatical in 2004-05, the researcher will apply for an academic-year BRIN grant as well as other grants from external funding sources.

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Updated 10/31/2005

The Arkansas INBRE is Supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health
and the National Center for Research Resources (P20 RR-16460).

Please contact Caroline Miller Robinson regarding questions or comments about this site or our program. For more information about the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences visit http://www.uams.edu.