| Position: Assistant Professor Education: Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. University of Georgia, Athens, 1999 B.S. in Biology. University of California, Irvine, 1993 Voice: (240) 314-6249 Email:
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Research OverviewNatural Mechanisms for Controlling Disease Disease causing bacteria have been traditionally controlled by disinfectants and antibiotics. Each of these methods has the drawback of producing mutants that are resistant to antibiotics and resistant to disinfection. The evolution of multi-drug resistant bacteria has outpaced the production of new antibiotics to control them, and dangerous bacterial strains such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) have become frequent and frightening topics in the daily news. Combined with the fact that research and development of new antibiotics is prohibitively expensive, this represents a major threat to public health for human beings, and also has numerous...
Complete Information... | Research Description Research Area: Pathobiology
Research Specialty: Biochemistry, Protein engineering, Catalytic mechanisms, Molecular interaction, Host-pathogen biology Great progress has been made the past several years on the discovery (cloning, expression, purification) of lysins and initial evaluation of their therapeutic potential in animal models of colonization. The Nelson group is now interested in studying a small subset of these lysins in detail to understand their basic structures, mechanisms, functions, and evolution. Based on our accumulated data and that of others, we can make a few generalized statements about these enzymes. Lysins from bacteriophage that infect Gram-positive organisms are modular enzymes composed of one or more conserved catalytic domains and a cell wall binding domain (CBD). The catalytic domain is represented by one of four families of peptidoglycan hydrolases: N-acetylglucosaminidases, N-acetylmuramidases (lysozymes), N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanine amidases, and endopeptidases. In contrast, the CBDs are notably divergent and can distinguish discrete...
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Representative Publications
Koller, T., Nelson, D., Nakata, M., Kreutzer, M., Fischetti, V.A., Glocker, M.O., Podbielski, A., & Kreikemeyer, B. (2007) PlyC, A Novel Enzyme for Compartment Dependent Proteomics of Group A Streptococci. Proteomics 7: In press.
Porter, C.J., Schuch, R., Pelzek, A.J., Buckle, A.M., McGowan, S., Wilce, M.C.J., Rossjohn, J., Russell, R., Nelson, D., Fischetti, V.A., & Whisstock, J.C. (2007) The 1.6 Crystal Structure of the Catalytic Domain of PlyB, a Bacteriophage Lysin Active Against Bacillus anthracis. J. Mol. Biol. 366: 540-550.
Fischetti, V.A., Nelson, D., & Schuch, R. (2006) Reinventing Phage Therapy: Are the Parts Greater than the Sum? Nature Biotechnol. 24: 1508-1511.
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