Job Description
Job Title: CURI Summer Researcher
Classification: Student Employee (non-exempt)
Name and Address of Employer: St. Olaf College, 1520 St. Olaf Ave, Northfield, MN 55057
If the position requires the student to work off campus, provide the name and address here:
Department Name: CURI
Unit Number (5 digits): 16118
Length of Position: See Employment Authorization
Contact Person/Supervisor: Faculty advisor listed in CURI Elevator database
Pay Rate (Check One) Standard Hourly Rate x Supervisory/Special Skills Hourly Rate
Description of the Position: (Purpose of the Position): Students work together with a faculty member on scholarly or artistic projects. The project results are presented in the CURI Fall Showcase in October.
Project Title : Dissecting mechanisms of substrate selection in O-glycosyltransferases
Faculty Mentor: Cassie Joiner
Project Description: The addition of a single sugar to nuclear and cytoplasmic proteins is essential for cell function and development in eukaryotic species. This post-translational modification is typically catalyzed by a single, nutrient- and stress-sensing enzyme called O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT). OGT is structurally conserved across eukaryotic species, from humans to plants, and modifies over a thousand proteins. Despite its conservation, OGT will target different protein substrates with different sugar modifications using unique sugar donors depending upon the species being studied. Due to the functional diversity of this structurally conserved protein, the mechanism by which OGT homologs select their substrates remains unclear. The Joiner Lab uses biochemical, chemical biology, and molecular biology techniques to determine how the structure and protein-protein interactions control substrate selection in human OGT and its plant homologs. Current projects in my lab aim to (1) develop unnatural sugar donors as tools to enable mechanistic studies of new plant homologs of OGT and (2) use unnatural amino acids to covalent capture protein-protein interactions between human OGT and other proteins critical for substrate selection to determine how these interactors regulate catalytic activity and what proteins OGT modifies.
Experimental techniques you will acquire: bacterial cell culture, recombinant protein expression, protein purification, unnatural amino acid incorporation, photocrosslinking, chemoenzymatic synthesis, SDS-PAGE gel and western blot analysis.
Transferable Skills: Research and presentations.
Duties and Responsibilities: Each project has its own timing in terms of number of hours per week and number of weeks, not to exceed 40 hours per week from May 29 to August 8. See the CURI Digital Olaf database for individual project descriptions and details. Students working at least 30 hours per week for at least 7 weeks will receive free on-campus housingsee the Student Guidelines for details.
See the application instructions for all projects.
CURI summer researcherswhether full-time or part-timeare encouraged to participate in professional development opportunities and community-building events. All researchers are expected to participate in the CURI Fall Showcase (by presenting a poster, website, music composition, dance, etc.) unless they are studying off-campus in the fall.
Qualifications: (Education/Experience/Skills) A student interested in applying for the CURI summer program must be enrolled as a St. Olaf student and be a rising sophomore, junior, or senior. There is no GPA requirement that must be met in order to apply for the program, but a student's academic record will be considered during the selection process. Skills are dependent on individual projects.
This job description is for general information purposes. It is not intended to list all duties and responsibilities of the position. This job description is subject to change at any time by St. Olaf.