Karin Crowhurst
Professor

Brief Biography

I grew up in western Canada but traveled east to pursue university. I received Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Chemistry before entering the field of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto where I completed a PhD in the Forman-Kay lab (who is at the forefront of protein NMR investigations). I then moved to LA to join the Mayo lab at Caltech for my postdoc. I started as a tenure-track faculty member at CSUN in 2007.

My research: in vitro and in-cell investigation of the acid-stress chaperones HdeA & HdeB.
The stomach is an important barricade that kills many bacteria before they can cause illness, in part by using its acidity to inactivate bacterial proteins. Some bacteria contain the small chaperone proteins HdeA & HdeB that help protect other proteins from becoming inactivated, thereby helping bacteria survive and cause infection. HdeA unfolds below pH 3.0 and interacts with its binding partners via hydrophobic interactions. However, there is a lack of data that monitors, in detail, the mechanism of unfolding, activation and interactions with client proteins. The insight we gain may aid future development of therapeutics that combat dysentery.

Students joining the lab have the opportunity to expand their understanding of the mechanism and biophysical properties of proteins the molecular level. You will learn how to use an FPLC to purify your proteins, as well as multidimensional NMR spectroscopy to obtain atomic-resolution insight into protein function.

Research 

Structural Biology Biophysics

Connections