Joshua Kelley
Biography: Dr. Joshua Kelley, Associate Professor, Department of Molecular and Biomedical Sciences
COBRE Project: Phosphoinositol Signaling in GPCR Desensitization
Goal: To characterize the role of Ga control of autophagy in the regulation of receptor signaling. Outcome: This project will further our understanding of the understudied Ga/PI3-Kinase branch of the yeast pheromone response and has the potential to uncover a new mode of feedback from Ga that promotes desensitization of the pathway through control of receptor endocytosis and trafficking.
Project leader qualifications: Dr. Kelley has extensive experience examining the spatiotemporal dynamics of Gprotein signaling pathways and is currently the PI of a NIH R15 studying GPCR control of septin organization during the pheromone response. He did his doctoral work in the lab of Dr. Bryce Paschal studying the regulation of the Ran GTPase in stress and in human aging. He did his postdoctoral work jointly with Dr. Henrik Dohlman and Dr. Timothy Elston working on G-protein regulation in the yeast pheromone response using microfluidics and computational image analysis. He is well versed in the molecular biology, yeast genetics and image analysis required for the proposed work.
Career impact of COBRE support: This grant will provide Dr. Kelley with the funds to support a graduate student and technician and support the studies that will build the foundations to apply for an R01. Unique contributions: Dr. Kelley’s expertise with the development of image analysis approaches in ImageJ and MATLAB provide numerous opportunities for collaboration with the other PIs in this proposal. Dr. Kelley’s
experience with GPCR signaling pathways will also be of use to the other Investigators as each project contains an element of GPCR signaling.
Utilization of COBRE and institutional resources: Dr. Kelley’s work will make extensive use of the proposed microscopy core for high quality and high resolution live cell imaging.
