Nicholas G Martinez successfully defended his dissertation titled “Characterization of RAS interactions with PI3K” on March 9, 2022, under the direction of Dr. Sharon Campbell.
Nick received his B.S.E. in Elementary Education from the University of Kansas (KU) in 2009 and his M.S.Ed. in Curriculum & Teaching from the University of Kansas in 2012. As an undergraduate at KU, Nick performed undergraduate research in children’s literacy and studied abroad in Wuhan, China through KU’s School of Education. Nick went on to teach both kindergarten and third grade in Lawrence, KS from 2010-to 2016.
Following the completion of his Master’s degree in 2012, Nick decided to pursue his childhood dream of doing cancer research. Using his mom’s passing from colon cancer at an early age as motivation, he gained a strong academic and research background in biochemistry, biophysics, and structural biology at KU. Nick conducted undergraduate research in the labs of Dr. Mark Richter (2012), Dr. Emily Scott (2015-16), and Dr. Audrey Lamb (2016-17) at KU. Nick also conducted undergraduate research through an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates summer research fellowship in 2016 in the lab of Dr. Timothy Street at Brandeis University.
Nick joined the Biochemistry & Biophysics Department in 2018 on the Biochemistry & Molecular Biology track. His graduate research in Dr. Sharon Campbell’s lab focused on the biochemical, biophysical, and structural characterization of RAS-mediated binding and activation of PI3K. RAS and PI3K are two key intracellular signaling proteins that regulate multiple signaling pathways that control cell growth, proliferation, differentiation, metabolism, and survival and are prone to activating mutations in human cancer.
During his time at UNC, Nick has been actively involved in science outreach, having been a part of multiple outreach programs, including the North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation’s IMPACTS Program, the American Chemical Society’s Science Coaches Program, Skype a Scientist, and North Carolina DNA Day. Nick has also enjoyed mentoring high school and undergraduate students in the lab. Nick has received funding from both a T32 MiBio Training Grant and an NCI Predoctoral Diversity Supplement.
After graduation, Nick will be joining the lab of Dr. Yong Xiong at Yale University in New Haven, CT as a postdoctoral fellow, where he will study host-viral interactions through both cryo-EM and X-ray crystallography in the Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry Department.
Publication “Biophysical and Structural Characterization of Novel RAS-Binding Domains (RBDs) of PI3Kα and PI3Kγ” NG Martinez