RIMI: "Thiol-Mediated Regulation of Yeast-to-Mycelial Dimorphism in Candida Albicans"

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Fisk and Wayne State Universities (located in the urban surroundings of Nashville and Detroit, respectively) are "minority institutions" with a firm commitment to improve the entry and retention of minority students in various fields of science and engineering. The overall objectives of the proposed research program are to motivate and train the undergraduate and graduate minority students by (a) teaching the basic principles and applications of different biological and biochemical techniques in life science research (b) providing hands-on-experience with laboratory instrumentation (c) encouraging the students to participate in the proposed research project on "Thiol-mediated regulation of yeast-to-mycelial dimorphism in Candida albicans", providing confidence to independently conduct experiments involving biochemistry and molecular genetics; and (d) providing training in scientific data collection and presentation to their peers in scientific conference or meetings. The specific objectives of the research project are: (1) study the effect of various penetrating and non-penetrating thiol-blockers on the yeast-to-mycelial transition in C. albicans; (2) determine the levels of key enzymes of the v-glutamyl cycle from the yeast and mycelial forms of C. albicans to gain insight into the reason for the rapid decline of intracellular glutathione; (3) The genes encoding the enzyme(s) with altered expression concomitant with the morphological changes will be clones, sequenced and characterized using gene cloning techniques. the gene(s) will be isolated form cDNA and genomic libraries of C. albicans and (4) The cloned gene (s) from C. albicans will be expressed in E. coil, the gene product(s) will be purified and used for molecular and biochemical studies. This project would help to increase the number and improve the levels of training of minorities and women in life science research. The implementation of the Research Initiation in Minority Institution (RIMI) project at Fisk and Wayne State Universities will not only improve the quality of the preparation of the students, which in turn will enhance their chances to enter graduate or professional schools, but also will enable the Biology Department at Fisk to recruit more top quality advanced minority students by providing funds for their support. These students, as research participants, will be effective role models for other predominately black undergraduates at Fisk and Wayne State Universities.