Greehey CCRI Spring Seminar Series: Min Kyu Kim, PhD, MS (UTHSA)
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I am interested in profiling protein-protein interactions and post-translational modifications of proteins governing pathway deregulation in cancer and other human diseases using cutting-edge mass spectrometry-based proteomics. In particular, my laboratory is studying how protein-protein interactions and various cellular signaling cascades (including phosphorylation, ubiquitylation, and methylation) regulate genome integrity during the cellular DNA damage response. Given that defects in executing DNA damage repair cause many types of human cancer, identifying novel interaction partners and regulatory cues of DNA repair proteins will enable us to pinpoint novel cancer-associated genes and therapeutic vulnerabilities of cancer cells that could be targeted in the clinic for precision oncology.
I investigate physical and functional protein-protein interactions (PPIs) using large-scale proteomics methods to dissect functions of protein complexes and biological pathways.
For example, PPI mapping of DNA repair proteins (altered in many tumors) identifies many new DNA damage response (DDR)-associated proteins. One such protein, Spinophilin, interacts with BRCA1 and regulates DNA double-strand break repair by dephosphorylating BRCA1 and other DDR proteins. Thus, the interactome study enables us to identify novel regulatory mechanisms of DDR and provides a basis for building a hierarchy of DNA repair protein complexes and systems, thereby enabling the development of new and effective therapeutic strategies to cure cancers.
Subspecialties: Large-scale Quantitative Proteomics; DNA Damage Response and DNA Repair Mechanisms; Cancer Systems and Protein Interaction Network Biology