Davies Wins Recovery Act Grant to Study Oxidative Stress

Kelvin Davies, associate dean of the USC Davis School and James E. Birren Chair of Gerontology, received a $244,000 Recovery Act grant for research on oxidative stress and aging.

Davies, also a professor of biological sciences, has identified several proteasome regulators that respond to oxidative stress.  Cells use proteasomes to adjust the concentration of particular proteins and degrade proteins improperly folded.

“In particular, PA200, PA28, HSP90, and HSP70 now appear to be important proteasomal activators in our system,” Davies said. 

Based on preliminary data, PA28 was expected to be one of the few proteasomal activators induced during oxidative stress adaptation, and was thought to play a unique role in proteasome activation. However, unexpected new data shows that the PA200 nuclear proteasome activator is also a major inducible regulator, and that HSP90 and HSP70, each of which is induced by oxidative stress, both significantly modify the degradation of oxidized proteins by the proteasome; either by binding to the proteasome, or by binding to the oxidized proteins, or both.

“We now propose two-years of additional research in order to properly pursue these exciting preliminary findings,” Davis said. “The grant seeks to accelerate the pace and achievement of our research, to create new jobs and to purchase much-needed equipment.”

Davies predicts to hire one new postdoctoral researcher and possibly two new research assistants to help conduct the highly specialized research.