The ultimate goal of the project, Zhuang notes, is to establish research and educational programs that not only advance the field of chemical biology by enhancing the scientific understanding of DNA damage tolerance, but also to inspire and educate the next generation of chemical biologists.

The project's outreach component seeks to spark the scientific curiosity and career aspirations of high-school students, with particular emphasis on underrepresented minorities in chemistry and biology, through the virtual reality visualization system called the "CAVE" at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute.

"High-school students will be able to walk into the larger-than-life 3-D structures of the specialized DNA polymerases that we are studying to see the variations in geometry of the active site as well as the DNA binding groove. This will help them to understand how the remarkable polymerases tolerate damaged DNA," Zhuang says.

Key collaborators in Zhuang's outreach effort include Doug O'Neal, manager at Delaware Biotechnology Institute, and biology teacher Thomas Fleetwood and his students at the Charter School of Wilmington.

"I'm very excited and honored to receive this award," Zhuang says. "There are lots of things to accomplish in both the research and outreach programs, and we are looking forward to making progress on both ends. I also want to extend my thanks to my students and coworkers for their great effort and contribution. This would not have been possible without their hard work." There are currently five graduate students and one postdoctoral fellow working in Zhuang's laboratory.

A new method for producing ubiquitylated proteins developed by Zhuang and his group recently was reported in the prestigious journal Nature Chemical Biology. Zhuang also recently won a Delaware Health Sciences Alliance (DHSA) pilot project grant for research to discover inhibitors that can lead to the development of potent, new anti-cancer drugs.

Source: University of Delaware