Hung Nguyen

Education:

Graduate Student, 2004-present, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S. Chemistry (major) & Computer Science (minor), Univ. of Utah (2004).

Advisor:

Professor Peter Sorger

Research:

NF-kB is an important transcription factor that regulates expression of numerous genes involved in processes such as growth, development, inflammatory and immune responses, and apoptosis. Upon activation by extracellular stimuli such as cytokines, bacterial lipopolysaccharides, viruses and radiation, NF-kB translocates into the nucleus where it binds to gene promoters, and regulates gene expression. From previous studies, it was shown that the number of promoters that NF-kB binds to upon activation was estimated in the ten of thousands range. It is thus very important to understand how NF-kB can have such a broad binding specificity. This broad binding specificity can be partly explained for by the existence of multiple NF-kB isoforms as well as post-translational modifications. However, recently there is emerging evidence suggesting that NF-kB can interact with other proteins which will then allow it to have different binding specificities. Using biochemical approaches, I am working on identifying interacting partners of NF-kB and studying their roles in the context of cellular apoptosis.