PhD Candidate Enters Uncharted Territory

Jike Cui recently completed a successful defense of his doctoral thesis, "Darwinian Selection for Sequons (Sites of Asn-Linked Glycosylation) with Threonine in Phylogenetically Disparate Eukaryotes and Viruses," making him the first student from the bioinformatics program to complete the PhD research work in the Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine (GSDM) Department of Molecular and Cell Biology. The doctoral degree will be awarded by the Graduate School of Arts and Science at Commencement later this month.

GSDM Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology Dr. John Samuelson and Professor of Biomedical Engineering Dr. Temple Smith both served as faculty advisors to Cui. Dr. Samuleson’s knowledge of various diverse biological systems of infectious organisms paired with Dr. Smith’s expertise on analyzing DNA and protein sequences allowed Cui to hone a skill set that will serve him well as he continues his research as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Samuleson’s lab.

"Glycoproteins have sugars added to asparagine residues in sequons and many eukaryotes have quality control systems for protein folding that depend upon these glycans," said Dr. Samuelson. "What Jike showed in his research is that there is a strong selection for N-glycans in organisms with quality control which is not present in organisms without quality control. Jike also demonstrated that mechanisms for this positive selection in a wide range of eukaryotic secretary proteins and in numerous viral proteins, such as those of HIV and Influenza."