International Postdoctoral Fellows Program: Functional Analysis of the Coatomer Complex in the Secretory Pathway

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9424028 Whitney The International Junior Investigator and Postdoctoral Fellows Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a twelve-month postdoctoral research visit by Dr. James Andrew Whitney to work with Professor Thomas Erhard Kreis at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. One of the defining features of eukaryotic cells is the system of membrane-enclosed organelles through which newly synthesized secretory proteins pass on their way to the cell surface. The transfer of membrane and secretory proteins between these organelles typically involves the formation of distinct populations of transport vesicles. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of these transport events has become one of the most important problems in molecular cell biology. The primary goal of the work proposed here is to learn more about the molecular mechanisms involved in the selective budding of vesicles in the secretory pathway. In particular, the PI will use relatively new in vivo imaging techniques to follow the dynamic distribution of cytosolic proteins thought to play a role in this process. ***