Student Projects
One of our favorite bugs in the lab- Escherichia coli expressing pyelonephritis-associated pili (Pap). These pili allow the bacteria to bind to epithelial cells in the urogenital tract and cause urinary tract infections. We study two proteins, RimJ and H-NS, that regulate the expression of these pili in response to multiple environmental cues.
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Angie Rasmussen '00 working on her DNA sequence data. Angie isolated and sequenced point mutants within rimJ in order to determine the regions of the protein necessary for the repression of pap transcription. |
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Stacie Eliades (STRIDE scholar) '02 and Angie Rasmussen '00 standing in front of their poster at the Smith College Undergraduate Biosciences Research Symposium. Stacie cloned an in-frame deletion of rimJ to determine the effect of the total loss of this protein on cell viability and pap transcription. |
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Sarah Young (STRIDE scholar) '03 is analyzing the effect of a variety of environmental stimuli on fimbrial transcription in two different strains of Escherichia coli |
Michelle Ploutz ('03) "Effect of environmental stimuli on rimJ transcription", Summer Science project.
Stacie Eliades ('02) "Regulation of pap fimbrial transcription by RimJ and S5 acetylation in Escherichia coli", "Cloning a null deletion in rimJ", "RimJ and environmental conditions influence pap phase transition rates", Special Studies and STRIDE projects.
Sarah Young ('03) "Environment and H-NS influence pap and daa phase transition rates", "Effect of RimJ on other fimbrial operons", STRIDE projects.
Kimberly Porter ('02) "Effect of a rimJhns651 double mutant on pap transcription", "Northern analysis of rimJ", Special Studies and research assistant projects.
Simren Mehta ('01) "Purification of RimJ and S5 using GST fusions", Special Studies project.
Jennifer Hoot ('02) "Isolation of mutations in rimJ", "RimJ as an environmental regulator of pap transcription", Special Studies and Summer Science projects.
Debbie Cwalina ('03) "Expression of rimJ from an inducible promoter", Summer Science project.
Angela Rasmussen ('00) "Mutational analysis of RimJ", Special Studies and Summer Science project.
Betsy Jarmolowicz ('00 AC) " Identification of temperature-regulated genes in E. coli", Special Studies project.
Anu Villapakkam '99 "Environmental regulation of fimbrial gene expression in E. coli", Master's thesis.
Karla Ronaszeki '99 "H-NS and environmental regulation of fimbrial transcription", Summer Science project.
Olivia Carrick '99J "Cloning rimJ under an inducible promoter", Summer Science project.