Research
Dr. Rebecca Bullard-Dillard, Ph.D.
Dr. Bullard-Dillard is Chair of the Department of Biology and Director for Research Development at Claflin University. Her efforts in building research infrastructure at the University are funded by the NIH. Her research projects investigate the role of plant proteins that are immunohomologs of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus autoantigens in oral tolerance mechanisms. She is working with Dr. Omar Bagasra on his prostate cancer research project. She has a collaborative project with researchers from MUSC and the Savannah River Site to map the Peromyscus genome.
Dr. Omar Bagasra, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Bagasra is the Director of Claflin University’s South Carolina Center for Biotechnology. His research interests have long been associated with the study of HIV and AIDS. In fact, he has been on the trail of the virus since 1981—the year of the first scientific report. For the past several years, he has focused on trying to gain insight into modes of virus transmission, natural immunities to retro viral infection, as well as the development of gene therapy treatments for HIV-1. Recently, he has concentrated on the molecular pathogenesis of prostate and breast cancers and in the development of edible vaccines for HCV and malaria with funding from the Department of Defense and the South Carolina Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network . His unswerving dedication to his work has resulted in over 200 scientific articles, book chapters, and books. He also has national and international collaborations with numerous well-known scientists, and many of these colleagues received training in molecular morphology in his laboratory at Lincoln University. He is the inventor of the in situ PCR technique. He also keeps a hand in clinical work—he is currently board-eligible in anatomic pathology and a diplomat of the American Board of Medical Laboratory Immunology, and the American boards of Forensic Examiners and Forensic Medicine.
Dr. Jianguo Chen, Ph.D.
Dr. Chen joined the department in August 2003. He comes to Claflin from a position as a Senior Scientist at Applied Biosystems, Inc. He has significant experience with methods development for microsatellite analysis and sequencing. Dr. Chen is the Director of our Genomics and Sequencing laboratory.
Dr. Kamal Chowdhury, Ph.D.
Dr. Chowdhury has recently joined the Biology department as plant / agricultural biotechnologist to develop and direct a plant biotechnology program at Claflin. Before joining Claflin, he was a Senior Scientist with Arborgen, world’s leading forest biotechnology company. Prior to that he was the Group Leader of tissue culture section of International Paper, world’s largest paper and pulp company. His research contribution in plant biotechnology area includes 38 publications in 18 peer-reviewed journals on 14 crop species in the area of quantitative and molecular genetics, plant tissue culture and genetic engineering. In addition to working on agricultural biotechnology, his future research interest is in the area of plant-made-pharmaceuticals and utilization of transgenic plants for phytoremediation.
Dr. Naseema Hoosein
Neuroendocrine differentiation in prostate and colon cancer. Effect of neuroendocrine substances on the proliferation and invasiveness of human prostate and colon cancer cells. Development of diagnostic and prognostic markers of prostate cancer. Expression and effect of immune mediators (interleukin-1, -2 and -6) on neuroendocrine and exocrine differentiation in prostate and colon cancer. Activity of certain voltage-gated and ligand-gated ion-channels in prostate, colon, lung and breast cancer. Expression of these ion-channels in primary human cancer specimens and their relationship with patient clinicopathological features.
Dr. Randall Harris, Ph.D.
Dr. Harris’ research interests focus on characterizing the role that bacteria play in certain disease processes and discovering new antibiotics. One of his projects deals with identifying and characterizing novel virulence determinants of the respiratory pathogen Moraxella catarrhalis. He is also collaborating with researchers at USC to investigate the increased colon cancer risk associated with particular resident microflora. Lastly, Dr. Harris is working on a project with Dr. Joseph Rugutt in the Dept. of Chemistry examining antimycobacterial properties of African plant extracts.
Dr. Mclean
Dr. Nicholas Panasik, Ph.D.
The eight stranded a/ b barrel protein fold is the largest family of protein structures (representing at least 10% of all known protein structures) and has the widest range of enzyme functions. My research focuses on elucidating the structural basis for folding specificity and thermodynamic stability in this class of enzymes and the future application of those principles in protein design. Specifically, I use random PCR mutagenesis to create a library of genetic variants for a variety of enzymes including beta-galactosidase. These variants are placed in an expression host that is a beta-galactosidase negative yet positive for the lactose transport genes. A temperature selection is applied. Using chromogenic substrates for screening, or nutrient restriction for selection, variants that display the selected phenotype (activity or stability at higher or lower temperature) can be selected. These variants are subjected to future rounds of mutagenesis and selection until variants with dramatically different enzymatic properties are produced. Using multiple successes from these “Directed Evolution” experiments, coupled with careful analysis of structure, patterns of mutations begin to emerge. These patterns help us posit generalized, fold-specific, molecular mechanisms of protein structural adaptation to temperature. These principles are then tested using site directed mutagenesis and rational design.
