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  6. Tristan Gunther

Tristan Gunther

After receiving my bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and training in biophysics research techniques with Dr. Baron Chanda and Dr. M. Thomas Record, I joined the Komives Lab at UCSD to pursue my PhD. In the Komives Lab, I’m exploring the diverse roles of intrinsically disordered proteins and protein regions, currently in the context of the NFkB family of transcription factors. Disordered proteins don’t lend themselves to many conventional structural techniques, instead requiring creative approaches and techniques like hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry and single-molecule fluorescence-based assays to reveal key interactions and associated conformational changes. I hope to not only gain insight into NFkB’s ability to find specific DNA sites and activate transcription, but also to expand our understanding of the multitude of direct and indirect functions of disordered protein regions.