• HOME
• PEOPLE
• GRADUATE
• UNDERGRAD
• COURSES
• RESEARCH
• FACILITIES
• SEMINARS
• ALUMNI
• GIVING

Site Search

Custom Search

The Allbritton Group

Biological assays have dramatically improved in recent years due to the increasing use of living cells as "test tubes" for research studies. These cell-based assays have demanded that new technologies be developed for the life sciences in order to fully exploit the potential of designer drugs, stem cell engineering, and genetic medicine. The Allbritton Group is at the forefront of this technology development for biomedical and pharmaceutical research.

Micropallet Technology
In the area of cloning for cancer and stem cell studies, the Allbritton group demonstrated a novel and effective approach for the isolation of specific, single cells from a population of cells. Using principles borrowed from the electronics industry, microengineered arrays of extremely small structures (30 – 50 microns) termed micropallets are fabricated on the surface of a microscope slide. A laser is used to detach an individual micropallet and its attached cell from the slide whereupon it is collected. This strategy has been demonstrated for single-cell isolation with unprecedented survival and colony forming ability of single cells (>85%), thus dramatically improving the cloning process. This tool is now under development in an NIH-funded project with Mike Ramsey in the Department of Chemistry and colleagues in the Lineberger Cancer Center's Animal Models Facility to improve the process for creating genetically modified mice for medical research.

The Erie Group

Members of the Erie Group focus on using single molecule and biochemical methods to better understand the kinetics and thermodynamics of protein-nucleic acid interactions. Current single molecule techniques used in the lab include Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Total Internal Reflection Microscopy (TIRM) techniques such as Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET). A major focus of our lab is the characterization of both the static and the dynamic protein-nucleic acid interactions that govern the overall repair specificity of mismatched or damaged DNA in prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. A few questions we are addressing include the following: How is mismatch repair initiated on some mismatches but not others? What properties of a damaged DNA substrate initiate apoptosis over mismatch repair? What roles do the mismatch repair initiation proteins, MutS and MutL, play in that separation of pathways? What are the structures/conformations of the multi protein-DNA complexes that control DNA repair? We are also characterizing a host of other protein-DNA interactions involved in DNA repair. There are projects within the group that would appeal to most areas of interest. Our group is composed of students from a variety of backgrounds and departments including chemistry, materials science, physics, and biophysics.