Home Department: Biology
Mentor: Carolyn Bertozzi, Chemistry

Protein glycosylation patterns in cancerous cells are uniquely different from normal, healthy cells. Emily will be focusing on MUC16, a glycoprotein that is a standard biomarker for ovarian cancer and is secreted into the bloodstreams of patients. She will be purifying enzymes that can selectively cleave glycoproteins into smaller fragments, facilitating mass spectrometry analysis to better map out the structure of specific glycoproteins and analyze their roles in cancer progression.