The Power of a Protein

Two genes fuse. A deadly disease is born. What happened?

It’s a common scenario and a common question for scientists trying to understand genetic diseases. The body’s genome has the power to control several thousand proteins. From a cell’s basic structure to hormones and enzymes—proteins coordinate myriad functions in the cell. One step to understanding how a genetic disease works is to look at how the mutated gene affects the proteins it controls.

Ena, short for Enabled, is a protein that may play a role in the development of leukemia. Using fruit fly eggs, James Mahaffey, a senior biology student at Carolina and undergraduate researcher, studies the role Ena plays in embryo development.

In high school, Mahaffey got his first start in research by working in his father’s lab at North Carolina State University. Since coming to Carolina, Mahaffey has worked three years in Dr. Mark Peifer’s Lab studying Ena. The field is developmental biology, but he says, “There’s a lot of cross-meshing. You’re constantly using lot of cell biology and genetics is behind all of it.”

Mahaffey spends two to five hours a day in the lab. He spends his Saturday mornings taking pictures of the fruit fly eggs with a confocal microscope, a special microscope that uses a laser to take pictures of fluorescent molecules. Using a protein first found in glowing jellyfish, Mahaffey attaches green fluorescent protein to Ena to make it visible under the microscope.

This is the third year Mahaffey has worked in a Carolina lab. While he doesn’t design the bigger experiments, he says that he can investigate and design small experiments as they arise. “It’s not that people take my work for gold, but I can say, ‘Look at my pictures here,’” he says.

Mahaffey describes his work as “very intellectually stimulating.” He says, “No day is the same. Every day is built on the last. Some days are monotones but eventually you’ll come up with an answer—those are great days”

Mahaffey calls working in the lab a “great career move.” And so far, it’s paid off. Last summer, he won an undergraduate research fellowship from the Smallwood Foundation to continue his work in the lab over the summer. This year, Mahaffey won a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship that provides $7,500 toward his educational experiences.

Check out more information on Dr. Mark Peifer’s lab, where James Mahaffey works - http://www.bio.unc.edu/faculty/peifer/

Thinking about majoring in biology? Visit Carolina’s Department of Biology for more information. http://www.bio.unc.edu/

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