Postdoctoral researcher, Kasey Day, has received a Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Health. The award aims to support postdoctoral candidates to advance their research in scientific health-related fields.
Day has been awarded three years of funding that will allow her to advance her research in the field of endocytosis in her project titled “Protein Droplets as Catalysts of Coated Vesicle Assembly.” Day received her PhD in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Chicago. With a strong background in cell behavior, she hopes this research will allow her to integrate a more interdisciplinary approach to better understand the biophysics of dynamic protein networks in membrane traffic.
Endocytosis is a well-studied field of cell behavior, but Day’s integration of protein droplets is a new approach to the field.
“The endocytosis process is like building a tower of proteins that interact in a very distinct way, and once they are there, they stay there,” says Day. “Protein droplets on the other hand, are a way more fluid assembly of proteins. They are constantly making interactions, breaking interactions, and that gives those proteins the ability to do things that a more solid scaffold could not do. It is the more fluid nature of these protein assemblies that has not been integrated into cell biology yet.”
Day hopes a quantitative approach to cell biology will answer questions about how the cell select sites on the membrane and of the processes that contribute to the efficient coordination of cell transport. By dissecting the process of what drives cell behavior in endocytosis, it is possible to determine how drugs are taken up by the cell and further research into diseases caused by failure of cells coordinating incorrectly.
Day works in the lab of Jeanne Stachowiak, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
