Research Lab of Dr. Kyle Friend
Professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Washington & Lee.
In Dr. Friend’s lab we investigate how the ribosome can be used to differentially regulate protein expression. When ribosomes are non-processive, we have evidence that they fall off mRNAs (messenger RNA molecules) and that the protein that is being made is stable and can accumulate in cells. From previous research in the lab, Dr. Friend hypothesizes that the truncated proteins created are important to cellular responses during stress, including inhibition of the cell cycle. In the summer of 2019, I helped Dr. Friend and other students analyze candidate proteins to see if they are produced in a shortened form when cells are stressed and when mTORC1 is inhibited. I continued my work into the following school year, and I am excited to see what we find!
To learn more about Dr. Friend and his previous research you can look at his information page on the Washington and Lee website. His publications are listed right at the bottom of the page.
A NanoPutian from my favorite lecture of Organic Chemistry – because chemists have fun too!
Brown Bag Presentation
The summer research scholars at Washington and Lee present their research in a “Brown Bag Lunch” presentation to other summer scholars and faculty. Our lab presented our findings on June 26, 2019. I presented alongside my two lab partners: Sherry Gu and Tara Kakkaramadam.
The presentation was a fun challenge, as the audience was very diverse in terms of their background on translation. Our audience consisted of students and faculty in the biochemistry and biology departments, who already had an extensive knowledge of the translation. At the same time, however, we had audience members from the mathematics and history departments with very little understanding of the principles behind our research question. We tried to make the presentation fun and understandable to all, while still providing our recent findings and methodologies those those with more background knowledge.
Check out our presentation slides to learn more about the information we discussed.
Here’s a clip of the animations on our slide explaining the concept of ribosome processivity and early termination. We found that these visuals were useful for the audience to visualize the production of a truncated protein.