Cameron Awarded NSF Grant to Study Enzyme's Effect on Disease

Vicki Cameron, department chair and professor of biology, has been awarded a $281,877 four-year grant from the National Science Foundation to continue her study of cytochrome c oxidase (CcO), a protein vital to cell respiration and energy production.

"Basically, what we do is manipulate the genes for CcO in yeast to change the way the enzyme functions," Cameron says. "Then we try to find the correlation between structure and function in the hope of being able to 'fix' the mutated enzyme. Because the structure of CcO is similar in all organisms, information learned about the enzyme in yeast is likely to reflect how the enzyme functions in higher organisms such as humans."

Her work could shed new light on understanding the aging process; Alzheimer's disease; Leigh's disease, which causes dementia, spasticity, and optic atrophy in infants; and other maladies.

"This project will involve undergraduate collaborators at all stages, including [their] carrying out the actual experiments, drafting manuscripts, and presenting results at scientific conferences," Cameron says. "Since my arrival here in 1985, more than 50 undergraduates have worked on aspects of CcO in my lab. The biology program at Ithaca College is specifically designed to integrate such research activities into the teaching process."