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Thomas, Whitney
Photo Credit: Chris Frazee, Media Solutions
 Whitney Thomas
Hails from Lloyd, FL
Fall 2007 will be a Senior at Florida State University majoring in Chemistry
Whitney has always found physical science fascinating. He has especially been passionate about the chemical aspect of physical science, which led him to choose the major of biochemistry. Whitney believes that educating society's scientifically challenged about biological processes will prevent the spreading of diseases and lead to healthier lives. He has always been interested in medicine and the physiology of the human body. Whitney's ultimate goal is to become a doctor, specializing in emergency medicine or reconstructive surgery.
Reason I chose UW-Madison Molecular and Environmental Toxicology Summer Research Program The Molecular and Environmental Toxicology research program was a great interest to me because it provides an opportunity for me to not only learn about graduate school but to more importantly, learn about research
and to further my education. From the beginning, I knew that this program would help me become a better analytical thinker and would provide me with enough experience to work in a laboratory and carry out my own research. In addition, I feel that the program will give an insight as to what field of study I should choose upon entry into graduate school. I feel that it will also give me a “headstart” as an incoming graduate student!
The program also offers a number of resources including weekly tutorials and a Kaplan course. It’s a superb experience that no student should pass up!
Funding
Participating in the Molecular and Environmental Toxicology Summer Research Opportunity Program through the funding of the National Institute of Health
Photo to Left Whitney Thomas with his lab mentor Dritan Liko and Dr. Warren Heideman
Photo Credit: Chris Frazee, Media Solutions
Research
Title of Research
Overexpression of Stb-3 Alters the Phenotype of Wild-type Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Cells
I worked, along with my mentor and other graduate students, with Saccharomyces Cerevisiae. It's a budding yeast found in brewing and baking. I worked with a affiliated protein called Stb3 (has no known domains 513 amino acids) that binds to RRPE found in the promoter regions of Ribosome biogenesis growth genes. Overexpression of the protein causes a reduction of cellular growth. Because the protein's functions or binding characteristics are unknown, we had to break it up into different domains using PCR to amplify the conserve fragments of the protein, incorporate the fragments into a yeast cell using a pYES plasmid containing the overexpression components which is the Gal 1 promoter. Digestion of the pYES background plasmid was necc. for transformation. Finally we used a colony PCR for verification of the construct. We ended using a drop test experiment to phenotypically see growth compared to the wild type control and entire Stb3-ORF. The work from the project could lead to the discovery of a binding domain for the protein. More work will be done to discover the mechanism or perhaps a pathway of Stb3 action.
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