Vadim Gaponenko

Membrane proteins are important targets for therapeutic intervention and are of significant interest to biomedical research in the area of cancer biology. My lab is interested in understanding how protein molecules acquire and perform their function. Functional characteristics of these proteins are encoded in their structure and are revealed in their interactions with other molecules. Membrane binding is undoubtedly involved in determining the structure of membrane proteins and in selecting their functional specifications. A multidisciplinary effort to characterize these interactions in living cells and the ways of their modulation through conformational flexibility will allow efficient therapeutic intervention. My long-term objective is to develop an integrated approach to study macromolecular interactions that involve membrane proteins. This approach will provide answers to such fundamental questions as why biomolecules interact in a specific but versatile manner and how their functions are established in living organisms. In this research my lab utilizes a battery of biochemical and biophysical techniques including solution state NMR, X-ray crystallography, surface plasmon resonance, isothermal titration calorimetry, as well as cell biology approaches. Currently, the research in my lab focuses on two main areas: (i) structure-functional relationships of human proto-oncogene K-Ras, which is a peripheral membrane protein, and (ii) understanding structural plasticity guided mechanisms of peptide inhibitors of human chemokine receptor CXCR4.