Annual Report 2011 - Center for Advanced Biotechnology and ...

Dr. Ann M. Stock
Associate Director of CABM
Investigator
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Professor
Department of Biochemistry
UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson
Medical School
Dr. Rong Gao
Research Associate
Dr. Christopher
Barbieri
Postdoctoral Associate
Dr. Paul Leonard
Postdoctoral Associate
Ian Bezar
Graduate Fellow
Hua Han
Graduate Student
Ti Wu
Research Teaching Spec.
Jizong Gao
Research Specialist
Protein Crystallography Laboratory
Dr. Ann Stock performed graduate work on the biochemistry of signal transduction
proteins with Professor Daniel E. Koshland, Jr. at the University of California at
Berkeley. From 1987 to 1991 she pursued structural analysis of these proteins
while a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Clarence Schutt at Princeton University
and Professor Gregory Petsko at the Structural Biology Laboratory in the
Rosenstiel Center at Brandeis University. Stock has received National Science
Foundation Predoctoral and Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Postdoctoral
Fellowships, a Lucille P. Markey Scholar Award in Biomedical Science, an NSF
Young Investigator Award, a Sinsheimer Scholar Award and an NIH MERIT Award
in 2002. She has received the Foundation of UMDNJ Excellence in Teaching
Award, the Molecular Biosciences Graduate Association Educator of the Year
Award and the designation of Master Educator at UMDNJ. In 2004 Stock was
selected as an Outstanding Scientist by the NJ Association for Biomedical Research.
She was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
in 2006 and fellow of the American Academy for Microbiology in 2007. Stock was
an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1994-2011. She
served as Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the NIH-National Institute
of Dental and Craniofacial Research in 2008-2009 and currently serves as an
Editor of the Journal of Bacteriology. She served on the Council of the American
Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from 2008-2011 and currently
serves as a member of the ASBMB Education & Professional Development and
Finance Committees. Stock serves as an elected member of the RWJMS Faculty
Council and the UMDNJ Faculty Senate.
The research of the Stock laboratory focuses on structure/function studies of signal
transduction proteins. Effort is concentrated on response regulator proteins that are
the core of two-component systems, the most prevalent signal transduction pathways
in bacteria. These systems are important for virulence in pathogenic organisms and
are targets for development of new antibiotics.
The Stock laboratory has continued to focus efforts on characterizing representative
members of the OmpR/PhoB transcription factor subfamily of response regulator
proteins, but now from a systems biology perspective. Studies have shifted from in
vitro analyses to in vivo analyses with the goal of being able to describe the
parameters of protein levels, phosphorylation states, and gene expression activity
during induction of the phosphate assimilation pathway, a model two-component
system in E. coli. Tools have been developed and data are being accumulated that
will hopefully allow the mathematical modeling of the mechanism of regulation in a
representative two-component system.
An additional research focus is characterization of two-component systems of
Staphylococcus aureus, a re-emerging pathogen that is currently associated with
more deaths annually in the United States than HIV1 (AIDS). New classes of drugs
are needed to combat the economic and health burden of drug-resistant S. aureus
strains (i.e. methicillin-resistant, MRSA). Several response regulators in
Staphylococcus aureus play important roles in virulence and are potential drug
targets. The Stock laboratory has focused efforts on two S. aureus transcription
factors, AgrA and VraR. In 2008, the Stock laboratory reported the structure of the
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