BMBB faculty member uses innovative approach to proteomics to study cellular signaling pathway.
Yue Chen, an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Development, received an early-career award from the National Science Foundation to study a specific cellular signaling pathway using quantitative chemical proteomics.
Chen will apply an innovative approach that integrates a new isotope-encoded stoichiometry analysis method and chemical proteomics strategies to functionally dissect ubiquitination signaling pathways. The research will focus on studying how ubiquitination — a modification of proteins with a number of biological functions including signaling, protein degradation and epigenetic regulation -- activates specific response pathways to initiate DNA damage repair. He hopes to identify novel ubiquitination-dependent regulatory mechanisms and find previously unknown enzymatic activities in DNA damage response with implications for understanding mechanisms underlying cancer and other diseases.
“What happens functionally with proteins, and how they change and modify, can help us understand the difference in regulation between cancer cells and normal ones so that we can learn more about cancer-signaling pathways and epigenetic mechanisms.” Read more about Chen’s research here.