RUSH UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
The goal of this application is to support a research employment opportunity for a postdoctoral fellow with strong molecular biology expertise needed to accomplish several studies within the peer-reviewed and approved parental grant HL089462. These studies, related to the role of intersectin-1s in regulation of lung vascular permeability in mice, include molecular cloning, recombinant protein technology, for prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression, RT-PCR analyses, site-directed mutagenesis to introduce point mutations in plasmid DNA, amplifying the plasmid and transform into competent E. coli, preparing large amounts of plasmid for in vivo delivery, generation of a Tet-On inducible gene expression system to achieve uniform expression and tight control of full-fength, truncated and mutated intersectin-1s in endothelial cells, as well as developing a vector-based siRNA that targets intersectin-1s gene, for efficient long-term inhibition of intersectin-1s in mice. The research activities covered by this supplement will be carried out in two years, according to the timeline on the parent grant. They will contribute significantly in addressing more effectively a number of research questions of the parental grant and in speeding up the tempo of our scientific research and accomplishments. The postdoc to be supported by this ARRA administrative supplement is Dr. Bich Duong. She has a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology and 5 years of postdoctoral experience. Currently she is employed at Rush University, Department of Neuroscience. In May 2009, she will be unemployed due to funding withdrawal. As part of our research team, she is expected to contribute technically and intellectually to the overall research strategy and at the same time to extend her knowledge and expertise with biochemistry, cell biology and imaging techniques, as applied to endothelial cell and lung vascular biology, to attend our journal clubs and seminars, grant writing workshops or formal courses in principles of grant submission, and thus, to be able to write and submit competitive applications for obtaining individual support.
Based on the intellectual resources, expertise, talent and motivation of our research team, the collaborations we have already developed with the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and the supportive Rush environment, I anticipate that the knowledge gained will directly impact the successful achievement of the aims of the parental grant,and will contribute to rapid translation of bench research to the clinical arena.