Request for Funding

Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2004

Mentor: Craig Powell, MD, PhD
Department: Psychiatry
Room number: NC5.410
Mail Code: 9070
Phone number: 214-648-4153
E-mail: Craig.Powell@UTSouthwestern.edu
Project title: Protein Phosphorylation in Contextual Fear Conditioning

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): 0941-02-01-1, and 0893-03-01-1

Project Type (patient-based research, animal-based research, or basic research; this characterization is only to permit a general classification for grouping similar types of projects) animal-based basic research

Brief Description of Project:
Omar will learn to train rodents in a fear conditioning paradigm along with control/sham training. He will dissect out the whole hippocampus, homogenize, and run Western blots using various phospho-specific antibodies. Target proteins will be those proteins altered in long-term synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus such as glutamate receptors. All of the available phosphospecific antibodies are available in the laboratory and pilot experiments will have been performed prior to his arrival to help ensure success of the project.
Omar has some exposure to Western blotting and is interested in learning this technique in more detail as well as being exposed to animal behavior.

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:

As a relatively new Assistant Professor here at UT Southwestern, I have not mentored medical students at this institution. I have, however, successfully mentored a beginning assistant professor here in the Psychiatry department, teaching him fear conditioning behavior along with his technician. This interaction has led to a paper in preparation on which I am senior author. I have also mentored several technicians in our department during my tenure as an Assistant Instructor working in Eric Nestler's laboratory.

My laboratory is quite small, consisting of myself and a technician and I feel that I will be able to spend more time with the student than most mentors as I will be working alongside him at the bench on a daily basis. I am currently funded by a K08 award from NIMH as well as a NARSAD Young Investigator Award with two additional pending grant applications.

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