Presenting Author
University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Hello,
My name is Loyda and I am fourth year PhD candidate at the Puthenveedu Lab in the Department of Pharmacology at University of Michigan (UofM). My enthusiasm for cell biology and understanding of the inner workings by which cells respond to environmental signals led me to the lab of Dr. Manoj Puthenveedu at UofM. Here, I’ve proposed a graduate research study that takes advantage of high-resolution fluorescence microscopy to visualize how an understudied family of acid-sensing membrane proteins senses and responds to changes in physiological pH from different locations inside the cell. This study will clarify how receptor location inside the cell is intricately linked to receptor signaling and lay the groundwork for targeting receptor location to influence cellular responses and ameliorate diseases associated with acidic microenvironments. As a PhD candidate and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow (NSF-GRF), I hope to increase understanding of the basic cellular biology of these acid-sensing proteins and how their responses occur in physiology and disease.