New Professor:
Nancy Horton
 Nancy
Horton's research interests are in the area of the structural
mechanisms of recognition and catalysis by DNA binding enzymes.
She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania
in 1994, where she worked on the X-ray crystal structure
of the E. coli lac repressor bound to its operator DNA.
She received her B.S. in Chemistry from Southern Illinois
University. Following her Ph.D., Professor Horton worked
briefly in industry at The Upjohn Company (now Pharmacia)
and was involved in several drug design efforts. She joined
an academic postdoctoral position at the University of California
at Santa Barbara in 1996 where she investigated the catalytic
mechanism of the type II restriction endonuclease EcoRV.
Current research
in Professor Horton's laboratory utilizes several DNA binding
proteins and enzymes including restriction endonucleases,
methyltranferases, and proteins involved in the Eukaryotic
nucleotide excision repair pathway. Her primary experimental
techniques are X-ray crystallography and pre-steady state
kinetics. In particular, Professor Horton is interested
in the way proteins utilize the sequence dependent conformational
preferences of DNA in their recognition process, as well
as how the recognition between a protein and its target
sequence can result in activating the catalytically competent
conformation of the protein. Professor Horton is also interested
in investigating the importance of dynamics in enzyme catalysis.
Professor Horton
spends her free time with her husband, Dr. Chad Park, and
two children Veena and Benjamin.
|
Wells
Sees Science as Adventure
 By
Kara Nyberg
The designation
of Regents' Professors is an honored position reserved for
faculty scholars of exceptional ability who have achieved
national and international distinction. The title Regents'
Professor created by the Arizona Board of Regents in 1987,
serves as recognition of the highest academic merit and is
awarded to faculty members who have made a unique contribution
to the quality of the University through distinguished accomplishments
in teaching scholarship, research or creative work. The rank
of Regents' Professor will take effect for the new inductees
on July 1, 2001, and increase the salary that customarily
accompanies these appointments by $5,000 annually. Regents'
Professors represent a maximum of 3 percent of tenured or
tenure-track faculty.
In reference to
Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken," newly
appointed Regents' Professor Michael Wells says he approaches
science by taking the road less traveled.
Since coming to
the UA in 1967 as a part of the founding faculty in the College
of Medicine, Wells' tactics have indeed "made all the
difference" by establishing him as a leader of insect
biochemistry research and academics at the University, where
he has served as both a faculty member and as head of the
biochemistry department from 1986-1995.
Though 2001 proved
to be a difficult year due to a serious illness of his wife,
Wells says "her eventual recovery and being named a Regents'
Professor were excellent ways to end the year."
Wells uses biochemical,
physiological and molecular biological approaches in the study
of insects in his lab. Students use the tobacco hornworm caterpillar
to analyze lipoprotein (a protein with a fat attached) synthesis,
transport and function. The yellow fever mosquito allows them
to study basic metabolic processes, such as increase in digestive
enzyme synthesis in the insect midgut to break down blood
after a meal, in addition to other topics. |
