Isaac Plutzer

Program: Computational and Systems Biology

Current advisor: Ben Major, PhD

Undergraduate university: Washington University, 2020

Enrollment year: 2020

Research summary
Integrative Proteomic Analysis to Illuminate Kinase Substrate Relationships and Kinase Signaling in Cancer

My research focuses on elucidating the roles of under-researched ‘dark’ kinases in normal signal transduction and cancer, employing cutting-edge proteomic technologies. My work involves the development of both experimental (wet-lab) and computational (dry-lab) methods to dissect complex kinase signaling networks through mass spectrometry (MS). In the wet-lab, I utilize gain-of-function phosphoproteomics and functional assays to explore how dark kinases alter the phosphoproteome and contribute to cancer-associated cellular phenotypes. Concurrently, my dry-lab efforts involve using computational methods to integrate phosphoproteomics data with proximity labelling MS data and various public databases to map kinases to their substrate phosphorylation sites.

Graduate publications
LaPak KM, Saeidi S, Bok I, Wamsley NT, Plutzer IB, Bhatt DP, Luo J, Ashrafi G, Major MB. 2023 Proximity proteomic analysis of the NRF family reveals the Parkinson’s disease protein ZNF746/PARIS as a co-complexed repressor of NRF2. Sci Signal, 16(815):eadi9018. PMCID: PMC10760916

Kinser HE, Mosley MC, Plutzer IB, Pincus Z. 2021 Global, cell non-autonomous gene regulation drives individual lifespan among isogenic C. elegans. Elife, 10():e65026. PMCID: PMC7864635