Current Research

As a first year Ph.D. student, I joined the Peters' lab in the Spring of '07. I am one of the few lab members who enjoys the powder days and the mountain summers too much to leave Montana. I have undertaken a project involving the structural and mechanistic characterization of thermally adapted Mo-dependent nitrogenase enzyme, found in thermophilic microorganisms isolated from Yellowstone National Park. More specifically, my research focuses on the thermal adaptation of the Fe and MoFe structural proteins that allow some microorganisms to fix nitrogen at high temperatures. By utilizing Azotobacter vinelandii, these structural proteins from thermophilic microorganisms of interest will be purified and biochemically characterized.