Undergraduate Researcher
CurrentMember of the Judith Klinman research laboratory at UC Berkeley. The Klinman laboratory is concerned with the nature of enzyme catalysis, in particular how protein dynamics relate to the increased substrate turnover rate of protein based enzymes. Current study involves using site-directed mutagenesis to express specific enzyme mutants and compare the mutants' hydrogen-deuterium exchange (HDX) data to the wild type protein in order to analyze differences in dynamic fluctuations between the mutant proteins and the wild type. By further understanding how protein dynamics play a role in enzyme catalysis, we are making a step towards being able to one day design protein enzymes from first principles.