Interdisciplinary research thrives at Oakland University

Interdisciplinary research is one hallmark of Oakland University. Many studies have faculty from different departments and even different schools. For instance, a recent investigation reported in the May issue of Proteins: Structure, Function and Bioinformatics (Volume 79, Pages 1427-1440) is coauthored by CBR member and Assistant Professor John Finke, of the Department of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Professor Mohamed Zohdy, of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the School of Engineering and Computer Science. The paper is also a nice example of how both experiments and theoretical models can be brought to bear on important biomedical topics; in this case the expansion of a section of a protein containing many repeats of the amino acid glutamine, a genetic indicator of several neurological diseases, such as Huntington’s disease.

Lead author is Jyothi Digambaranath, a graduate student in the Biomedical Science: Health and Environmental Chemistry PhD program.