Kroos Lab Members

Visiting Research Associates
	Mark Robinson is a postdoc interested in developmental gene regulatory networks and their evolution. He received his undergraduate degree in Zoology and Biochemistry from the University of Wales, Bangor, and his PhD from the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Currently, he is applying both experimental and computational approaches to genome-wide binding site prediction for two key transcription factors involved in M. xanthus development. He is also using comparative approaches to explore cis-regulatory evolution in the promoter of the dev operon. E-mail:blobby@msu.edu
PhD Candidates
	Paul Himes is a grad student in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics who joined the group in 2002.  His project focuses on examining the structure/function relationship of the Bacillus subtilis sporulation transcription factor SpoIIID.  Paul received his B.S. in microbiology from MSU in 2001. As an undergraduate, he examined the efficacy of a novel fatty acid as an antimicrobial agent against select pathogens under the direction of Dr. Elliot Ryser. E-mail:himespau@msu.edu
Undergraduate Students
	Terry Barrett is a sophomore majoring in Lyman Briggs Physiology. She is studying whether the ability of M. xanthus to be transformed by a plasmid depends on the growth or developmental state of the bacteria. Ultimately, she is asking: does the expression of the dev operon during the developmental stage affect the cell’s ability to defend itself against Mx8 integration? E-mail:barre127@msu.edu
	Jun-seok Lee is an undergraduate majoring in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology/Biotechnology. He has been working in the lab since Spring of 2007. His project is to identify transcription factors for the 4403 promoter, a C-signal-dependent promoter of Myxococcusxanthus . FruA is a protein that regulates gene expression in response to C-signaling. Previous work in the lab showed that the FruA DNA-binding domain binds to the 4403 promoter region. Jun-seok’s current experiments show that MrpC (a transcription factor essential for fruA expression) also binds to the 4403 promoter region. He is mapping the position of binding by performing gel shift assays with short DNA segments spanning the 4403 promoter region. E-mail:leejuns1@msu.edu
	Paul Luethy is a Biochemistry major and has been working in the Kroos lab since September 2007. He is working on creating a functional cysteine-less SpoIVFB. Why? If a functional enzyme without cysteine residues can be created, then a cysteine can be inserted anywhere in the enzyme. Once that is finished, the accessibility of water can be found with cysteine modifying reagents. However, what we think will be more important is to perform cross-linking experiments between the enzyme and substrate to determine how it binds in the active site. Paul enjoys science, but in his free time is an avid Packers, White Sox, and Spartans fan and also enjoys playing the saxophone. E-mail:luethypa@msu.edu
	Yu Liu is an undergraduate majoring in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He has been working in the lab since August 2008. His current work is to study binding of two proteins to the 4406 promoter region of Myxococcus xanthus. The 4406 promoter region has been shown to be heavily dependent on C-signaling, a contact-dependent signaling interaction that is crucial for the development of multicellular fruiting bodies by this bacterium. The two proteins, FruA and MrpC2, have been shown to bind cooperatively to certain promoter regions, and also play important roles in fruiting body formation. Yu's study aims to find out whether and where the two proteins bind to the 4406 promoter region, and if so, the consequences of these interactions.

• [an error occurred while processing this directive]