Holy Cross Chemistry Professor Receives Award for Protein Splicing Research

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Camille and Henry Drefyus Foundation has awarded Kenneth Mills, associate professor of chemistry at the College of the Holy Cross, a $60,000 Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award for his proposal titled “The Mechanism of Protein Splicing: Non-canonical Inteins.”

Mills’ research focuses on the chemical process of protein splicing.  He’s particularly interested in proteins that are interrupted by another protein, called an intein. The inteins, which could play a role in controlling post-translational regulation of gene expression, must coordinate their own removal as well as the joining of the flanking segments, which is a costly way for a cell to produce the final protein.

Mills and his research team want to understand the chemical mechanism of the protein splicing process, as well as why the protein splicing may regulate the gene expression rather than express the uninterrupted protein.  They would like to determine if inteins are molecular parasites that do not have function to the host, or if there is an advantage to the intein’s presence that prevents the host organism from selecting against the intein.

The stipend will fund undergraduate student research in Mills’ lab during the summer and will be used to purchase supplies for the lab during the academic year.  In addition, it will help support the goals of the biochemistry concentration, including bringing speakers to campus who will broaden students’ exposure to top flight research work.

Mills, of Holden, Mass., has been a member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2001.  He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University.  He directs undergraduate researchers in the study of the mechanism of hedgehog autoprocessing and protein splicing.  In 2005, Mills received the National Science Foundation’s CAREER grant for CAREER: Alternative Mechanisms of HINT Domain Autoprocessing: An Integrated Undergraduate Research and Education Program.”  He is the co-chair of the biochemistry concentration and has served as a member of the Academic Affairs Council and the Curricular Review Steering Committee.

The Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program is “intended to support and encourage young scholars who demonstrate excellence in both research and teaching” and emphasizes the nominee’s accomplishments in teaching and scholarly research with undergraduate students.