Development of models to monitor vitamin D activity

Vitamin D compounds are being developed for the treatment of chronic kidney disease. The purpose of this proposal is to develop a cell-based screening platform that will allow the rapid assessment of relative efficacy of a library of compounds. The intern will use recombinant DNA methodology to generate a cell-based assay in which the green fluorescence protein will be inserted into a vitamin D responsive gene; thus, permitting the visualization of vitamin D signaling in real-time. This same recombinant DNA construct will be designed in such a way that it can be further used to establish a line of mice in which tissues responding to vitamin D compounds will “glow”. This may permit the visualization of pharmacodynamic properties of compounds in live animals.

Faculty Supervisor:

Glenville Jones

Student:

Partner:

Cytochroma Inc

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Queen's University

Program: