Our Science – Rausch Website

Jason W. Rausch, Ph.D.

HIV DRP Retroviral Replication Laboratory RT Biochemistry Section Staff Scientist NCI-Frederick P.O. Box B Building 535, Room 325 Frederick, MD 21702-1201 Phone:   301-846-5384 Fax:   301-846-6013 E-Mail:   jrausch@ncifcrf.gov

Biography

Education:

1990 B.S. (Biology, minor in Mathematics) Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

1997 Ph.D. (Biochemistry) Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio

2002 B.S. (Computer and Information Science, with certificates in UNIX System Administration and Database Design) University of Maryland, University College, Adelphi, Maryland

Research

The principal focus of my research has been to use various tools of biochemistry, molecular biology, and computer modeling to understand the interaction between/among retroviral enzymes (reverse transcriptase, integrase) and structural proteins (nucleocapsid, gag) and their nucleic acid substrates. In particular, I have developed a number of in vitro assays utilizing substrates containing nucleoside analogs (e.g., difluorotoluene, iso-guanosine, 2-amino-adenosine, etc.) and purified recombinant enzymes to study how HIV-1 reverse transcripase specifically recognizes its cognate primer for plus-strand DNA synthesis, the HIV-1 polypurine tract (PPT). I am currently also using related methodologies to explore the mechanism(s) by which the ubiquitous cellular enzyme APOBEC3G, an HIV restriction factor, catalyzes cytidine deamination within select target sequences in single-stranded viral DNA. Finally, I have recently received a 2007 NCI Director’s Career Development Innovation Award for my application entitled “Evolving Sequence-Specific Integrases and Methyltransferases by In Vitro Compartmentalization�. With these funds, I plan to use novel directed evolution techniques to help improve the target-specificity of retroviral gene therapy vectors, as well as tools useful for epigenetics research pertaining to cytosine methylation.

This page was last updated on 7/15/2008.