Nicholas Dickenson Email and Phone Number

As a graduate student, I developed and characterized high-resolution microscopy and spectroscopy techniques including total internal reflectance fluorescence microscopy (TIRFM), Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) to study single molecule transport events through NPCs as well as to identify an interaction between vault proteins and NPCs in which the vaults represented a previously unidentified central mass within the pore of NPCs.I joined Dr. Bill Picking’s research lab as an NIH postdoctoral fellow in 2008 to expand my biological expertise with the goal of developing a truly interdisciplinary research program in analytical chemistry and biological systems. I have been involved with many projects in the Picking lab where the main focus is on the molecular basis for pathogenesis by the gram negative enteric pathogen Shigella flexneri. One of my recent projects was to use spectroscopy-based FRET analyses and NMR chemical shift mapping to identify key residues involved in the interaction between IpaD and the bile salt deoxycholate (DOC) and to map the resulting conformational change. We also have an in press manuscript in which the crystal structures of apo-IpaD and a DOC bound IpaD are compared and used to engineer point mutants to identifying the definitive DOC binding site within the protein. I also recently developed an in vitro fluorescence polarization (FP) binding assay as well as both inter and intramolecular FRET assays to characterize the binding of a stable and soluble 198 residue region of IpaB to IpaD and the molecular chaperone IpgC. I am now working to dissect the interactions and to identify the regions of IpaD, IpaB, and IpgC involved in this interaction.