This past semester I had the honor to be taught by Dr. Gustavo Silva in his Bio201 class – hands down my favorite class last semester. However, in a lecture hall of 300 students, we never heard about Dr. Silva’s past or work. Interesting enough, big topics that we learned in class such as ubitiquination and degradation process are the focus of his research at his lab. A proteasome is made up of a complex of proteins and is known as the “machine of degradation”. Proteasomes degrade about 80% of all molecules in a cell; they know what material to degrade based on a tag that is placed on the molecule to indicate to the proteasome that it must be destroyed. This tag is known as a ubitiquin chain that is placed due to a cascade of enzymes. The researchers in Silva Lab are studying to answer the questions on how what molecules open the proteasomes along with the structure of these proteasomes. An interesting idea for the researchers as well revolves around the function of the ubitiquin chains architecture. The relationship between the proteasome and the ubitiquin chain is interesting to Dr. Silva and its effects on neighboring organelles, for instance, ribosomes. As Dr. Silva spoke of his research, I was fascinated that I understood so much of his talk due to my learnings from his past class. Back in eighth grade when I sat in my first biology class, I had dreams to be a civil engineer or an architect, but after studying the chapter on the cell and learning all its various yet important functions, I knew I wanted to study biology somehow and seeing that Dr. Silva’s work is mainly on a process that occurs only in cells reminded me of my early passion that stemmed from my biology class six years ago. Putting aside his research, Dr. Silva was also one of my favorite speakers this summer as he is a fellow Brazilian that talked about having determination and desire in every central aspect of your life; from soccer to proteasomes he puts in the work to achieve what he desires and the most vital part is that he enjoys what he does – it is admiring.
