Molecular Mechanisms Determining the Strength of Adhesion Between Cell Surface Adhesion Receptors

Professor Leckband’s work combines direct force measurements and the genetic techniques to identify the molecular mechanisms that regulate the strength of adhesion between neural cell adhesion molecules. She will quantify the contributions of different protein domain contacts to the overall strength of homophilic (NCAM-NCAM) adhesion and determine possible molecular mechanisms by which polysialylation regulates NCAM function.