Juliana Quay
Winthrop University
Roger Colbran lab
Calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) is a ubiquitous serine/threonine kinase that is highly expressed in the brain and necessary for synaptic plasticity. I am interested in the molecular basis of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders, and I hypothesize that disrupted synaptic plasticity lies at the root of most brain disorders. I plan to take CaMKII genetic variants that have been identified in human psychiatric/neurodevelopmental disorders and study the biochemical and mechanistic effects of such mutations to learn more about how CaMKII is implicated in the molecular basis of disease. My initial studies will focus on the effects of such mutations on CaMKII activity, and its interactions with CaMKII-associated proteins (CaMKAPs).