Devin Christensen Email & Phone Number

Salt Lake City Metropolitan Area

- Developed and executed a strategy to purify retro-viral restriction factor TRIM5 alpha complexes from mammalian tissue culture cells. Collaborated effectively with an external mass spectrometry laboratory to identify the co-purified TRIM5 alpha-interacting proteins. - Designed and cloned a multifunctional viral vector system for transduction of mammalian cells for stable expression of an shRNA, a gene of interest, and a fluorescent marker protein.- Developed a complex retro-viral restriction assay to test for co-factors that function with TRIM5 alpha during restriction. This FACS based assay utilizes the viral vector construct listed above to silence candidate TRIM5 alpha-interacting proteins followed by challenge with a TRIM5-alpha restricted retro-virus. - Screened the human ubiquitin conjugating enzymes (E2s) and candidate proteins identified by mass spectrometry for function with TRIM5-alpha during restriction. - Purified 11 different human E2 enzymes from bacteria using nickel affinity or cation exchange chromatography followed by gel filtration chromatography using an AKTA FPLC system. - Designed complex experimental strategies to investigate the in vitro ubiquitin ligase activity of TRIM5 alpha using purified recombinant proteins including each of the 11 E2s identified in the functional screen.

Greater Salt Lake City Area

• Reviewed invention disclosers to gain understanding of technical aspects of invention.• Prepared technology summaries, market analysis, and comparisons to state-of-the-art of client inventions. • Prepared non-confidential summaries of technology for marketing purposes.• Performed patent and prior art searches.

Identified six new interactions between the Breast Cancer Susceptibility gene product, BRCA1, and the family of ubiquitin conjugating enzymes (E2s). Discovered that different ubiquitination products are synthesized by BRCA1 depending on the E2s used in an ubiquitination assay and that poly-ubiquitin chain formation depends on a second, non-covalent, ubiquitin binding site on the E2. Identified an uncharacterized protein and named it BABS, and demonstrated that it is a BARD1-Associated BRCA1 Substrate. Found that BRCA1-mediated ubiquitination of BABS requires a set of three different interactions between the E3 ubiquitin ligase (BRCA1/BARD1), E2, and Substrate (BABS). This research has significantly advanced the field of protein ubiquitination by demonstrating that E2 enzymes can participate in substrate selection and can dictate the mode of ubiquitination.

Investigated two metalloproteins; ferritin and ceruloplasmin, and their mechanisms of iron storage and transport. Specifically, cloned, expressed in bacteria, and purified a 19 kDa C-terminal fragment of ceruloplasmin and investigated its potential to facilitate iron incorporation into ferritin. Purified ferritin and ceruloplasmin from both recombinant and native tissues. Cloned full-length ceruloplasmin for expression in insect cells using the baculovirus expression system.

Ph.D., Biochemistry

B.S., Chemistry