Lauren Barr, 2006-

B.S., Univ. of Pennsylvania

MSTP Program, Harvard Medical School

Lauren is an M.D./Ph.D student investigating the role of Radish in memory and synaptic plasticity.  Long-term memory in Drosophila can be divided into two components: a protein synthesis-independent form termed anesthesia-resistant memory (ARM) and a protein synthesis dependent form termed long-lasting, long-term memory (LLTM).  Radish mutants display intact LLTM but lack ARM in olfactory conditioning protocols.  The radish gene was recently cloned and encodes a novel serine/arginine-rich protein conserved in mosquitoes (64% identity) and honeybees.  Among vertebrate proteins, it shares the highest homology with splicing factors.  It contains 23 predicted PKA phosphorylation sites, 14 predicted PKC phosphorylation sites, and 5 nuclear localization signals (NLS).  In addition, a large scale yeast two-hybrid screen showed that Radish binds to the small GTPase, Rac1.  Radish mutants have a nonsense mutation near the 3’ end of the coding region which removes 1 PKA site and 2 NLS sites.  Lauren has begun to investigate the expression of Radish in 3rd instar larvae and is preparing a yeast two-hybrid screen to confirm the interaction with Rac1 and identify new binding partners for Radish.