Trevor P. Creamer, PhD
Connect
859-323-6037Trevor.Creamer@uky.edu
Positions
- Professor
- Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs - Basic Sciences
- Director of Graduate Studies
College Unit(s)
Biography and Education
Education
Research Associate
Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Washington University at St. Louis.
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, The Pennsylvania State University.
Education
Ph.D. (Physical Chemistry), University of Western Australia.
B.Sc. with 1st Class Honours (Physical and Inorganic Chemistry), University of Western Australia.
Research
Structural and biophysical studies of calcineurin regulation and activity
The Creamer lab is applying its expertise to the characterization of the function and conformational properties of intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) within proteins. IDRs are regions of protein sequence that do not appear to adopt a well-defined structure. Our current studies are focused on calcineurin (CaN), a Ser/Thr phosphatase that is activated by calmodulin (CaM) binding. CaN plays essential roles in memory development and retention, cardiac growth, and immune system activation. It has been implicated in numerous disorders including Alzheimer's disease, Down syndrome, cardiac hypertrophy, and autoimmune disorders. The regulatory domain of CaN, which is a CaM substrate, is an IDR. We are investigating the CaM-CaN interaction and how this regulates CaN function.