BUFFALO, N.Y. — Joseph Basalla, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in the University at Buffalo Department of Physics, has been awarded a prestigious fellowship from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate how flexible, poorly understood regions of proteins help control which genes are switched on or off.

The Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship (F32) aims to provide research training to promising postdoctoral scientists pursuing careers as independent investigators in health-related fields. 

Basalla will receive $237,708 over the three-year fellowship, which will be carried out in the lab of Priya R. Banerjee, PhD, professor of physics in the UB College of Arts and Sciences and director of graduate studies for the physics department.

“Joe is an outstanding scientist, an excellent representative of UB’s postdoctoral community, and a compelling example of how federally funded research training programs are helping launch the next generation of scientific leaders,” Banerjee says. 

The fellowship will support Basalla’s research on FOXG1 (forkhead box G1), a protein that regulates gene expression during brain development. Mutations that impair FOXG1 function can lead to FOXG1 syndrome, which is marked by cognitive and physical disabilities, along with life-threatening seizures. 

Basalla’s work in the Banerjee lab focuses on the FOXG1 protein’s intrinsically disordered regions, flexible stretches that do not fold into a fixed 3D structure. His preliminary experiments have found these flexible regions may help FOXG1 gather into biomolecular condensates in the cell nucleus. These condensates, tiny liquid-like droplets, may play a crucial role in how FOXG1 binds to DNA and represses the right genes at the right time.

“Disordered protein regions have been referred to as the dark matter of our proteome, since there’s a lack of unified understanding how they affect cellular activities and lead to disease,” says Basalla, who received his PhD in molecular biology from the University of Michigan. “Better understanding disordered regions may tell us more about how FOXG1 aids brain development and, when mutated, impairs it.” 

Understanding the biology of disordered proteins needs cutting-edge tools. Basalla will leverage state-of-the-art single-molecule and live-cell imaging technologies developed in the Banerjee lab to track how FOXG1 interacts with DNA and forms functional protein condensates inside cells, providing a molecular-level view of how its flexible regions control gene expression.

Basalla is the second postdoc in the Banerjee lab to receive the NIH F32 fellowship within the last year. Sukanya Srinivasan, PhD, received the fellowship to support her work investigating aberrant RNA clustering and their role in neurodegenerative diseases. Together, Basalla and Srinivasan’s fellowships will bring more than $400,000 in external funding to the university.

“Their success reflects both their exceptional talent and the interdisciplinary nature of our research program, which bridges physics, biology and neuroscience,” Banerjee says.