Moshe Gordon,聽a Biochemistry graduate student in Dr. Joseph Falke's lab has been awarded the聽SRAA Outstanding Poster Award at the 聽in San Diego, California. Moshe presented his poster, titled "Single-Molecule Diffusion Studies of Membrane-bound聽PDK1-PKC Heterodimers Reveal a Monomee-Dimer Equilibrium with Regulatory Significance," during a graduate student competition and was one of two students selected from聽the Membrane Structure and Function category.聽
The Falke lab studies the leading-edge membrane of chemotaxing white blood cells. This highly specialized membrane possesses a sophisticated sensory pathway that enables white blood cells to follow chemical trails to sites of infection, inflammation, and tissue damage. The pathway includes multiple, membrane-bound master kinases responsible for聽integrating receptor and second messenger signals, ultimately yielding a signal output that controls the direction and speed of cell movement. In this project the lab measures the 2D diffusion, enzyme activities, and protein-protein interactions of single, membrane-bound kinase molecules via single molecule Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence microscopy聽(smTIRFM). In particular, Moshe's聽project focuses on聽elucidating the molecular mechanisms by which essential receptor-kinase and kinase-kinase interactions activate and inhibit the sensory pathway, respectively.