Full Research Description
Before coming to Columbia, I conducted research in the Kuriyan lab at UC Berkeley on membrane recruitment of Itk, a non-receptor tyrosine kinase that is crucial for coordinating the immune response in T Cells. I identified a sentry glutamate residue that contributes to Itk's specificity for phosphatidylinositol phosphate 3 (PIP3), and characterized Itk's diffusion and behavior on membranes with particular lipid compositions. I absolutely love studying molecular and cellular biology, and have major interest in cellular defense pathways and programmed cell death pathways in degenerative disease and cancer models.
