Tamara Kinzer-Ursem
Title:
Marta E. Gross Professor
PhD Granting Institution:
University of Michigan
Contact:
Email Address: tursem@purdue.edu
Office Phone: 765-494-7330
Lab Website Link: https://engineering.purdue.edu/ursemlab
Primary Training Group:
Computational and Systems Biology
Secondary Training Groups:
Biomolecular Structure and Biophysics, Biotechnology
Research Areas:
Computational biology; integrative biology; disease detection; multi-scale modeling; protein-protein interactions; microfluidics
Current Projects:
Our research interests lie at the intersection of engineering, systems biology and biochemistry. We implement a combined theoretical-experimental approach to quantitatively study the dynamic regulation of protein networks that drive cellular behaviors. Our work can be characterized as tools development for studying protein function and signaling dynamics. We use protein engineering techniques to developing new methods to study protein signaling in high throughput formats. These in vitro techniques are complemented by development of in silico mathematical representations of protein signaling that allows us to understand protein function in the context of larger signaling networks and to probe network function in the context of overall cellular behaviors. These techniques are being applied to study calcium-dependent signaling in excitatory cells and the dynamic regulation of protein phosphorylation via kinase and phosphatase proteins.
Importance of Interdisciplinary Research:
Our work sits at the interface of engineering, physics, biology, neuroscience, and infectious disease. We employ a variety of techniques to solve problems and develop next generation tools.