2002 ASBMB Fellowship: Belinda Sharpe

Sharpe Belinda Sharpe completed her Bachelor of Science degree with First Class Honours at the University of Sydney in 1998. Her honours project was carried out in the Department of Biochemistry under the supervision of Dr Joel Mackay. Belinda's honours project involved working towards biophysical characterisation of the zinc finger transcription factor FOG-1, to further understand its interaction with GATA-1 in haematopoiesis.

The following year, Belinda began her PhD candidature, continuing to work with Dr Joel Mackay on zinc-binding motifs. Her research initially focused on structural studies of the transcriptional coactivator CREB binding protein. Using NMR spectroscopy, she solved the solution structure of a fragment of the N-terminal Cys/His rich region of CBP, showing that it bound a single zinc ion. This was consequently shown to be non-native, when a larger, functional construct encompassing this peptide displayed a very different structure.

However, the surprising discovery of this non-native novel fold was interesting, as a peptide taken out of the context of a whole domain, was still able to form a stable, yet different structure. It also raised questions about how likely it is for novel zinc-dependent folds to arise during evolution. In order to examine this issue, Belinda designed a number of peptides that explored the minimal requirements for a stable, folded domain of this type and she has determined structures of a number of these. She is now working towards using these minimal structures as scaffolds for transplanting functional binding faces for either specific DNA or protein targets.

The ASBMB fellowship will allow Belinda to attend the 20th International Conference on Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems, to be held in Toronto, Canada in August this year.

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This page last modified: October 10, 2008.