Powers, David N.
David is a first year trainee and is in the Department of Biological Chemistry. His research mentor is Dr. James Wohlschlegel. He received a B.S. degree in 2005 from CalTech.
Mentor: Dr. James Wohlschlegel
My research involves discovering and understanding the complex interactions of a novel iron-binding ubiquitin ligase FBXL5 and its varied set of substrates. Work began on FBXL5 after discovering its interaction with the Iron Regulatory Protein (IRP2) via use of Multidimensional Protein Identification Technology (MudPIT) mass spectrometry. In addition, proteins of other pathways were discovered. After our initial paper outlining the iron-dependant stability of FBXL5 via directly binding iron through its hemerythrin domain and the subsequent degradation of IRP2 as a substrate I began work on two other processes in which FBXL5 appears to be involved. The first is the osmotic stress regulation pathway, and the other is the iron-sulfur cluster assembly pathway. My work currently involves establishing the role of FBXL5 in these pathways and its role in controlling protein degradation.
