Christine Payne Assistant Professor Office: MSE G026 Phone: 404-385-3125 Fax: 404-385-6057 E-mail Christine Payne Research Group Page

B.S., University of Chicago, 1998; Ph.D., Physical Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, 2003; NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University, 2003-2006

ACS PROGRESS/Dreyfus Lectureship, 2008; NIH Research Scholar Development Award, 2007; NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2004-2006

Research Interests

Essential to cellular function is the controlled synthesis and degradation of proteins. On the most fundamental level, both of these processes are chemical reactions carried out by biological machinery. The goal of the Payne Lab is to understand the kinetics and dynamics of these reactions as they occur in living cells. Recent developments in a broad range of scientific disciplines, including spectroscopy, cell biology, materials science, and structural biology, have created a unique opportunity to probe these reactions directly. It is now possible to label specific proteins and other biomolecules with bright fluorescent probes made from naturally fluorescent proteins, synthesized organic molecules, semiconductors, or noble metals. These labeled biomolecules can be excited with lasers and imaged using ultrasensitive cameras and photodiodes.

Reaction Dynamics within a Cell. This array of developments allows us to use fluorescence microscopy to image the synthesis and degradation of proteins within the cell. Direct imaging reveals the subcellular location, concentration, and reaction rate of the proteins of interest. These parameters will be measured to determine a complete intracellular reaction mechanism. Specific systems of interest include post-translational modification of proteins, transcytosis across the blood-brain barrier, and delivery of cargo to the lysosome for degradation. These systems pose a number of biological and physical questions including the mechanism of intracellular transport, kinetics of vesicle fusion, influence of the local environment on a chemical reaction, and the conversion of chemical energy into mechanical motion. In addition, the Payne Lab will use computational methods to provide a quantitative description of these cellular events. This includes modeling protein gradients within the cell and developing methods for global cell analysis.

New Technologies for Live Cell Imaging and Nanomaterial Delivery. The emission from fluorescent probes within the cell competes with the autofluorescence of the cell. The Payne Lab is improving the resulting signal to noise ratio by developing both new optical techniques for live cell imaging and new methods for delivering novel fluorescent probes to cells. These methods will be used to probe intracellular reactions on the molecular level and to enable new research directions using quantitative cellular imaging. Optical methods of interest include nanometer-level imaging, spectroscopic single-particle tracking, and multiphoton total internal reflection. The intracellular delivery of novel fluorescent probes and other nanomaterials will borrow methods developed for gene delivery to introduce these probes into cells in a controlled manner.

Recent Publications

"Imaging gene delivery with fluorescence microscopy," C.K. Payne, Nanomedicine, 2, 847-860 (2007).

"Cellular binding, motion, and internalization of synthetic gene delivery polymers," G.T. Hess, W.H. Humphries IV, N.C. Fay, and C.K. Payne, Biochim. Biophys. Acta, Mol. Cell Res., 1773, 1583-1588 (2007).

"Proteoglycans define a clathrin- and caveolin-independent endocytic pathway with a novel trafficking itinerary," C.K. Payne, C. Chen, S.A. Jones, and X. Zhuang, Traffic, 8, 389-401 (2007).

"Nanophotonic light sources for fluorescence spectroscopy and cellular imaging," O. Hayden and C.K. Payne, Ang. Chem. Int. Ed., 44, 1395-1398 (2005).

"Ultrafast infrared mechanistic studies of the interaction of 1-hexyne with Group 6 hexacarbonyl complexes," J.E. Shanoski, C.K. Payne, M.F. Kling, E.A. Glascoe, and C.B. Harris, Organometallics, 24, 1852-1859 (2005).

"Intramolecular rearrangements on ultrafast timescales: Femtosecond infrared studies of ring slip in ( 1-C5Cl5)Mn(CO)5," C.K. Payne, P.T. Snee, H. Yang, K.T. Kotz, L.L. Schafer, T.D. Tilley, and C.B. Harris, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 123, 7425-7426 (2001).