UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA RESEARCH FOUNDATION, INC.
Grant: $313,745 - National Institutes of Health - Sep. 1, 2009
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Award Description: The thymus is the primary lymphoid organ responsible for the production of T cells, and its function is required for the generation of cellular immunity in vertebrates. The stromal cell types in the thymus form a complex meshwork of microenvironments through which bone marrow-derived T cell progenitors migrate, providing signals that instruct them to differentiate, proliferate, or die. The structure and integrity of this microenvironment is essential to the production of functional T cells, and its disintegration is a key component of reduced thymic function with age that occurs in all individuals, resulting in immunodeficiency. The Foxn1 transcription factor has been shown to be both a major regulator of thymus development and required to maintain the postnatal thymus. However, little is known about the downstream targets of Foxn1 that mediate these diverse functions. In the parent grant, we proposed to perform a genome scan to identify and validate downstream targets of Foxn1. In this proposed supplement, we will accelerate the pace of this aspect of the parent project, by hiring additional staff to perform the genome scan in 1 year instead of 2, and increasing technical staff from part-time to full-time and purchasing equipment that will allow us to perform a high-throughput screen of targets identified in the genome scan. These new staff and equipment additions to the parent grant will thus allow rapid identification of validated target genes, ensuring that we will be able to test highly ranked candidate genes with functional analyses in later years of the parent grant.
Project Description: As defined in the Award Description field.
Jobs Summary: The postdoctoral position that will be supported on the supplement is a new full-time position above my current staff levels. In hiring the postdoctoral position, we will target hiring a scientist with experience in Bioinformatics, genome analysis, and molecular biology techniques. While our co-investigator, Dr. Lauderdale, has expertise with genome scanning, no one currently in my laboratory has such expertise. This addition will add a critical new skill set to my laboratory for this project. The technician position in the originally funded proposal is a part-time position (25%). This supplement will increase this position to 100% starting in March 2010. This will allow the technician to work with the postdoctoral fellow in performing target gene validation, including generation of embryos for in situ hybridization analysis and associated animal husbandry, and performing the in situ hybridization screening using the BioLane HTI purchased in the first year of the supplement budget. We are requesting in the first budget year the purchase of a BioLane MTI automated platform for in situ hybridization, at $42,020. (Total jobs reported: 0)
Project Status: Not Started
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