NSF Grants Second Consecutive Award to Dr. Loening

Dr. Nikolaus Loening, Professor of Chemistry and Director of the BCMB Program, is the recipient of a second consecutive Research Opportunity Award (ROA) from the National Science Foundation. ROA Supplements are available from NSF’s RUI Program to support research by faculty members at predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs). This new $25,000 grant will enable Dr. Loening to continue his project, “Structural Basis of Phosphorylation and Alternative Splicing in Dynein Regulation”, in collaboration with Professor Elisar Barbar at Oregon State University this summer.

Dr. Loening started work on this project, which studies how the interaction between an intrinsically disordered region of the motor protein dynein and its binding partners is regulated, during his 2017-18 sabbatical. This research will involve Lewis & Clark undergraduates this summer, who in addition to working in Dr. Loening’s lab will also spend time in the Barbar lab. The goal of Dr. Loening’s project is to use a number of biophysical approaches, including nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, circular dichroism, and isothermal titration calorimetry, to help reveal the structural basis for how phosphorylation modulates dynein’s preference for its binding partners. The Barbar lab focuses on elucidating molecular processes that govern protein networks involving intrinsically disordered proteins.