December 4, 2008
Heather Bethea, a graduate student at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, has received an Off-Campus Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Graduate School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Bethea, the first student from the School to receive the fellowship, will receive a $7,350 stipend to support her study of heparan sulfate, a carbohydrate that is synthesized in mammalian cells by a series of enzymes. It is involved in many physiological functions, including regulation of cell growth and blood coagulation, and also has been found to inhibit an enzyme that enhances the onset of Alzheimer’s.
Bethea’s work focuses on understanding the structure and function of two biosynthetic enzymes, 2-O-sulfotransferase and 6-O-sulfotransferase, that modify the backbone of heparan sulfate. These modifications have been implicated in the functional selectivity of heparan sulfate.
A recent article published online by Bethea and her colleagues in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, entitled “Redirecting the substrate specificity of heparan sulfate 2-O-sulfotransferase by structurally guided mutagenesis”, demonstrates their ability to modify 2-O-sulfotransferase in order to create specialized forms of heparan sulfate with different biological functions. During her fellowship, Bethea will prepare selectively modified heparan sulfate and study its potential therapeutic role in reducing the onset of Alzheimer’s.
Bethea entered the School’s graduate program in 2005 after graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry. She has been conducting her research in Associate Professor Jian Liu’s lab in the Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products. She will be completing her research study in Liverpool, England, from March to June 2009 with Professor Jerry Turnbull, PhD, the Chair of Biochemistry, at the University of Liverpool.
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