Courtney Quick, who worked in the Miller Lab in the UNC Summer Undergraduate Research Experience program in 2018, is co-first author on a new paper out today in Cellular Signalling. Courtney and her colleagues in the lab of Dr. Thomas Meigs at UNC Asheville found structural features responsible for differences in function between two guanine nucleotide binding proteins, Ga12 and Ga13. Overexpression of these proteins has been implicated in various cancers; therefore, these structural differences could help to develop drugs that can selectively target either Ga12 or Ga13 to influence their signaling in the context of disease. Courtney is now working at the NIH supported by their Intramural Research Training Award in the lab of Dr. Kathleen Merikangas.
