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Nita-Lazar - 2026

Mentor: Aleksandra Nita-Lazar, PhD | nitalazarau@mail.nih.gov
Lab
Functional Cellular Networks Section, Laboratory of Immune System Biology, NIAID
NIAID

BESIP Project 1. Absolute quantification of phosphosite occupancy in the TLR pathway.

With our long-term goal of creating a data-driven model of the innate immune signaling in macrophages, initially centered around the Toll-like receptor (TLR) pathway, we need absolute quantification of proteins and protein bearing specific post-translational modifications. This project aim is to perform absolute quantification of phosphorylated proteins in the TLR pathway before and after macrophage stimulation with pathogen-associated molecules using heavy peptide standards and quantitative mass spectrometry, followed by data analysis and implementation of the data in the mathematical model.

BESIP Project 2. Single-cell proteomics to probe innate immune cell diversity within a population combined with targeted absolute quantification

The project will focus on utilizing minimal number of cells down to single cell and maximizing the depth of proteome probing using the heavy peptide standards for absolute quantification with mass spectrometry to increase the probability of quantifying the proteins in the Toll-like receptor (TLR) pathway. The data will be used to validate the model and note the variety of the cells and their diversity and variation explaining model/experiment discrepancies and fitting the model to the biology to make more accurate predictions and generate clinically useful hypotheses.