Elena Nicotra

▪ Perform recombinant protein expression in mammalian, insect, and bacterial systems

▪ Produce recombinant baculovirus expression system in SF9 cells

▪ Purify monomeric mutant forms of neurodegenerative proteins via AKTA FPLC systems

▪ Express and purify various HTT variants including FL Q23 HTT, FL Q48 HTT, FL Q73 HTT, FL Q107 HTT, Q16 Ex1(1-97) HTT, Q46 Ex1(1-97) HTT, Q48 (2-171) HTT, Q23 (1-753) HTT, Q45(1-573) HTT, and others.

▪ Express and purify TDP43wt and TDP43(1-273)

▪ Amplify, validate, and isolate plasmid DNA for neurodegenerative protein expression

▪ Maintain mammalian and insect cell lines (HEK293, GNTI, and Sf9) for protein expression

▪ Familiarze standard QC processes, such as gel chemistry, BCA, Western blot / JESS, and SEC-MALS/RI through application of protein chemistry, protein chromatography, and molecular biology

▪ Write updated SOPs for various expression, purification, and cell maintenance protocols

• Remote

▪ Assisted with a computational project funded by NIH under supervision of Dr. Werren

▪ Identified noval interactions among ACE2 receptor protein with potential unidentied interactors by aligning the correlations of evolutionary rate within the current mammalian dataset

▪ Annotated parologous mammalian proteins by using existing alignment programs

▪ Contributed aligned databases by coding via Python

• Used evolutionary rate correlations to predict the likelihood of two proteins interacting with each other

▪ Isolated DNAs from mutated male Drosophila for studing intrusive transposable elements

▪ Optimized PCR conditions for amplifying mutant DNAs

▪ Maintained Drosophila colonies and adult flies

• CAS352 Recitation Leader for Chemistry 132(CHM132)

• CAS353 Recitation Leader for Intro to Biology (BIO110)

• This was a summer internship program that focused on the intricacies of evolution and researching a specific unannotated protein to learn more about its ancestry.