Co-solute Effects/Osmotic Crowding on Enzyme Kinetics

• Enzymes, the protein machines that enable life-defining chemical reactions, have evolved to function in crowded intracellular conditions which are very different from the dilute conditions used in conventional enzymology. 

• My students and I have attempted to simulate the effects of in vivo crowding through the addition of neutral solutes/osmolytes to in vitro buffers.

• We have used osmotic stress to "quantify" the crowding effect of these osmolytes.

• We have observed both competitive-like and uncompetitive-like enzyme inhibition resulting from applied osmotic stress.

• My research takes advantage of our impressive instrument suite at Mount Royal University.

• The first set of our results has been published in ACS Omega!  

Studying Enzyme Kinetics in all the Wrong Places

• I am very interested in measuring enzyme kinetics in "non-ideal" environments such as reverse micelles and in soil

Current and Past Student Researchers

• Ms. Samantha Boulet

• Mr. Nicholas Capp

• Ms. Chantal Carrier

• Mr. Michael Cordara

• Mr. Calvin Gordon

• Ms. Melanie Longair

• Mr. Brian Lozinski

• Mr. Uday Parmar

• Mr. Kyle Poffenroth

• Mr. Alexander Rimke

• Mr. Luke Syriste

• Ms. Maryam Yaqoob

• Ms. Oksana Yavorska

• Mr. Jeffery Yee

• Ms. Lily Choi (University of Calgary)

• Ms. Anne Yang (University of Calgary)

Research Support

• My research is made possible by funding from MRU's Internal Research Grant Fund and grants from the Faculty of Science and Technology including the Petro-Canada Young Innovator Award!