Position:
PhD Candidate, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2020-present)
karol.buda[at]msl.ubc.ca
Link: Linkedin, ResearchGate
Education:
2020 – MSc Biochemistry, University of St Andrews, United Kingdom
Background
I undertook my first research project at GlaskoSmithKline R&D in the UK in the Screening, Profiling and Mechanistic Biology Department. In 2018, my primary task was to explore the formation of a ternary complex between two proteins and a proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC), and more specifically determine a high-throughput way to quantify the cooperativity of the complex. In 2019, I began my Master’s project at the Smith Lab in the University of St Andrews exploring the subcellular localization of lipid binding domains in trypanosomes.
Research interests:
I am primarily interested in the non-additive interaction between mutations in proteins, dubbed intramolecular epistasis. Epistasis confounds the predictability of evolutionary trajectories in protein evolution; I aim to use computational methods to estimate the presence of epistasis in existing evolutionary trajectories, as well as lab-based methods to determine the biophysical mechanisms which underpin the nature of these interactions.
Publications: