Biochemical Journal Poster Prize winner

Marguerite Buzza

Marguerite has focused on the biology of serine proteases and their inhibitors. She completed her Ph.D. in the laboratory of Professor Phillip Bird at Monash University, Australia, where she studied non-apoptotic functions of the cytotoxic lymphocyte granule serine protease granzyme B, and the function of the intracellular granzyme B inhibitor PI-9 in endothelial, immune-privileged and reproductive tissues. In 2006 she received a CJ Martin overseas post-doctoral fellowship and joined the laboratory of Professor Toni Antalis at the University of Maryland to study the function of a relatively new family of cell-surface serine proteases – the membrane-anchored serine proteases – with a particular interest in the type II membrane protease matriptase. Her group has discovered that matriptase, a protease with a trypsin-like specificity, is localized to the adherens junctions in polarized intestinal epithelial cells where it plays a critical role in the closure of the paracellular pathway and formation of the intestinal epithelial barrier. The molecular pathway and proteolytic target of matriptase that mediates epithelial barrier formation is the subject of her current research.

(These data were presented at the GRC on Plasminogen |Activation and Extracellular Proteolysis, for which the Biochemical Journal poster award was awarded, and was also recently published in the journal Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. (2010) 107, 4200–4205).