William Stoy
Research
Voltage Sensitive Fluorescent Proteins (VSFP) enable direct visualization of changes in membrane potential, including spikes and some subthreshold activity. An ideal sensor would be bright with high dynamic range, be efficiently trafficked to the cell’s membrane, and be fast enough to resolve millisecond-timescale activity. While site-directed mutagenesis of these proteins has made strides towards producing useful VSFPs, it was recently shown that random mutagenesis produces improvements in speed and sensitivity in locations distal to previously targeted active regions. Therefore, a tool for protein-wide mutagenesis and selection is necessary to screen for improved VSFPs. We are developing a high-throughput screening tool to align, measure, and select improved mutants 10,000x faster than existing plate-array based methods.
Education
B. S. North Carolina State University
Ph.D. Georgia Institute of Technology
