CU INVESTors
Inclusive Excellence in Science and Technology
Who are we?
Our team is currently comprised of undergraduate students from Clemson University under the direction of Dr, Meredith Morris. Our students collaborate with middle school and high school teachers from across the state to plan school visits. In these visits, the undergraduate students perform fun and informative science experiments with the children and help foster an interest in the sciences.
Dr. Meredith Morris
Email: mmorri3@clemson.edu
Education:
Ph.D., Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Georgia, 2000
B.S., Biology, Virginia Tech, 1995
Kinetoplastid parasites cause a number of diseases that affect more than 70 people annually. Among this family are Trypanosoma brucei, Trypanosoma cruzi and Leishmania spp, which cause human African trypanosomiasis, Chagas disease, and visceral, cutaneous and mucocutaneous leishmaniasis, respectively. There are no vaccines against these diseases and the current treatments are toxic and difficult to administer, making the search for new drug targets essential. In the search for new therapeutics we investigate essential parasite-specific processes, with the belief that understanding these
processes will enable us to specifically target the parasite during treatments while leaving the host relatively unaffected. Kinetoplastid parasites harbor unique organelles, glycosomes, which are essential to parasite survival. The pathways that regulate glycosome biology are rich with potential drug targets. We use a number of biochemical and cell biology approaches to elucidate the mechanisms involved in glycosome biogenesis, maturation, maintenance and remodeling.
Publications:
Bauer ST, McQueeney KE, Patel T, Morris MT Localization of a Trypanosome Peroxin to the Endoplasmic Reticulum. (2016) J Eukaryot Microbiol. Jun 24. doi: 10.1111/jeu.12343.
Bauer, S, Conlon, M, Morris, M. Using fluorescent-organelle reporter systems to study glycosome dynamics in African trypanosomes (2014) Journal of Visualized Experimentation. Aug 19;(90):e51647.doi: 10.3791/51647
Bauer, S, Morris, J, Morris, M. Environmentally regulated glycosome protein composition in the African trypanosome (2013) Eukaryotic Cell1 12(8):1072-9. doi: 10.1128/EC.00086-13
Lin, S.; Morris, M.T.; Ackroyd, P.C.; Morris, J.C.; Christensen, K.A.Peptide targeted delivery of pH sensor for quantitative measurements of intraglycosomal pH in live Trypanosoma brucei(2013) Biochemistry 52 (21) 3629-37