Mike Thorsen Email and Phone Number

Collaborated with and shadowed a cryo-EM expert to image vesicle deformation mediated by the EBV NEC using a vitrobot and Tecnai F30

The main focus of my project was investigating how the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) nuclear egress complex (NEC) interacts with and bends membranes to shuttle nascent capsids out of the nucleus. I purified mutant NECs to test their membrane binding and bending abilities on synthetic membranes. I also established a collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to train and perform neutron reflectometry experiments to discover how the NEC orients on membranes. I managed two other collaborations to investigate protein-membrane interactions with scientists at Cornell (electron spin resonance) and UCLA (small angle x-ray scattering).A second project investigated virus-specific vs conserved features of a purified recombinant Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) NEC through x-ray crystallography and vesicle deformation assays. Here, I operated and maintained the Phoenix crystallization robot to test ~6,000 crystallization conditions for the EBV nuclear egress complex to obtain a hit for crystallization conditions which enabled me to solve the x-ray crystallography structure of the EBV NEC.

Performed DNA/RNA isolation and quantitation for preparation into Next-Gen sequencing libraries. Executed Next-Generation sequencing runs on MiSeq, HiSeq2500 and NextSeq machines and RT-qPCR gene expression experiments on QuantStudio 7 Led development of an automated protocol on a QIAgility liquid handling robot to accurately pipette next-gen sequencing libraries for quantitation via qPCR