Cosgrove receives March of Dimes research grant

Cosgrove receives March of Dimes research grantMay 24, 2007Sara Millersemortim@syr.edu

Michael S. Cosgrove, assistant professor of biology in The College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded a two-year research grant for $150,000 to study how a protein functions and is regulated in human cells, which may offer a new basis for designing new therapeutic strategies for the treatment of leukemia. Cosgrove received this grant, called the Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award, from the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation.

Cosgrove’s project involves understanding how a protein called MLL (mixed lineage leukemia) works. This protein is frequently mutated in infants and adults suffering from certain types of leukemia. To understand how this protein functions, Cosgrove is attempting to determine the three-dimensional atomic structure of the catalytic portion of MLL, which when combined with biochemical experiments provides a greater understanding of how the protein functions in normal cells and what goes wrong when the protein is mutated in leukemia. This combination of structural biology and biochemistry represents an extremely powerful approach for the identification of new and more effective drugs for the treatment of the disease.

Cosgrove joined the faculty of The College of Arts and Sciences as assistant professor in the Department of Biology in 2005. Prior to joining SU, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

With expertise in biophysics and structural biochemistry, Cosgrove focuses on the structural biochemistry of proteins. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the SUNY College at Cortland and a master’s degree in human development and a Ph.D. in biology from SU. His first postdoctoral work was at Cornell University.