Daniel Edwards

Research Interests: 

• Isolating and characterizing novel natural products from microbes
• Using biosynthetic enzymes to design approaches to aid in the production of natural products or natural product analogs

CURE-E Course: Biochemistry Lab (CHEM 453MW), first introduced with CURE-E in Fall 2021

Project Title: Structure/Function Study of Aldehyde Dehydrogenase Enzymes

In our capstone biochemistry lab course (CHEM 453MW) we are transitioning to a semester-long protein-centered research project-based approach starting in Fall 2021. We are modeling our revamped course design on other course-based research undergraduate experiences or CUREs that have been implemented at a variety of undergraduate institutions across the country. The most common topic for biochemistry-related CUREs is the investigation of specific structure-function relationships in dehydrogenase enzymes. There is a developing community of educators that are sharing resources in this area. These resources are proving useful in my transition. Dehydrogenase enzymes carry out key oxidation/reduction reactions in cellular metabolism, are important targets for drug design, and can be used to catalyze key stereospecific steps in the organic synthesis of drugs. While we will focus our efforts on dehydrogenase enzymes initially, in theory, this approach could be applied to different types of enzymes in the future. For the project, students will use published literature and 3D-protein structure models to formulate a hypothesis about how changes of a specific structural feature of their target dehydrogenase enzyme might affect the function of the enzyme. Students will test their hypothesis through mutational analysis, where they will design specific mutations of the enzyme, produce the mutant enzyme by doing site-directed mutagenesis in a recombinant E. coli host, purify the desired enzyme, and test the effects of the mutation through activity analysis. This project will provide students with valuable research experience while exposing them to many important methods in biochemistry.