Immigration Status

Taurai Chiku, PhD

9926 Aldwell Ct

Houston TX 77064

Cell: 1 414 736 2630

Email:

IMMIGRATION STATUS

·  Permanent Resident

TEACHING EXPERIENCE: Marquette University

Lone Star College System (2013 - Current)

Experience in teaching Introductory and General Chemistry classes

Supervises laboratory experiments for Introductory and General Chemistry

Houston Community College (2014 – Current)

·  Experience in teaching Introductory and Organic Chemistry classes

·  Supervises laboratory experiments for Introductory and Organic Chemistry

Marquette University

·  Current: Teaching lecture and laboratory sections in Introductory Chemistry classes at LoneStar College (CyFair)

·  2002 to 2007: Grading laboratory reports, homework and test. Generated grades (in Excell®)as assigned by course professors

·  2002 to 2007: Assisted in General Chemistry summer school courses in various capacities.

·  2005 to 2007: Supervised a group of 5 other Teaching Assistants in addition to leading tutorial and laboratory sessions.

·  Experience in Desire2Learne (D2L)® online teaching suite.

EDUCATION

·  PhD Chemistry, Marquette University, 2007 (May 2008 Graduation). Dissertation Title: Thiol reactive probes: Applications in kinase assays and thiol assays) Advisor: Professor. Daniel;.S. Sem

·  BSc. Honors (Chemistry), University of Zimbabwe, June 2000. Thesis: Determination of pH and hydrogen peroxide levels in rain water samples collected from around Zimbabwe. Advisor: Prof. S.D. Sithole

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Biochemical

·  Experience in E. Coli based protein expression and purification

·  More than three years experience with enzyme assay design and execution

·  Designing and performing site directed PCR mutagenesis

·  Organic and Enzyme-based generation of novel substrate analogs and thiol detection probes

Chemical

·  Experienced in UV visible, NMR, IR and MS methods for analysis of small molecules

·  Hands on experience with wet-chemical analysis for metals and non-metals

·  Organic synthesis

ReseaRch and working experience

Postdoctoral Associate (January 2008- March 2012) The University of Michigan Medical School, Department of Biological Chemistry. Advisor: Professor Ruma Banerjee. Research involved:

·  E. Coli based expression and chromatographic purification of cystathionine gamma lyase (CGL)

·  The kinetic and mechanistic characterization of CGL

·  In vitro screening of inhibitors/activators of CGL using a compound library

·  Mechanistic studies of CGL by designing and studying various active site mutants of CGL

Graduate Research Assistant (August 2002-December 2007) PhD. Research Work: Marquette University. Advisor: Professor Daniel S. Sem

·  Design and application of probes for reactive thiol compounds

·  Application of probes in kinase assays and thiol assays

·  Thiol reactive probes were designed, synthesized and evaluated by chemical methods as well as in vivo and in vitro studies.

Chemist (August 2000 – July 2002) Zimbabwe Alloys (Gweru, Zimbabwe). Supervisor: Albert Wakandigara. Duties involved wet as well as instrumental analysis of raw, process and output materials at a ferrochromium

SKILLS/TECHNIQUES

Technical Skills and Competence

·  UV-Vis based traditional kinetic and general enzyme assays

·  Fluorescence based kinetic and general enzyme assays

·  Enzymatic based synthesis

·  Isolation and characterization of nucleotide analogs

·  General synthesis and isolation (using FPLC) of labile biochemical molecules

·  Stopped flow kinetics

Advanced Spectroscopic Techniques

·  Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy

·  Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy

·  MALDI MS

·  General chromatographic techniques (GC/MS, GC, HPLC and other column chromatography techniques)

·  Fluorescence and fluorescence polarization spectroscopy

·  Ultra violet and visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy

Computational Skills and Competence

·  Chem Office® application software

·  Rasmol® protein visualization

·  NCBI database navigation (including BLAST and VAST searches).

·  Protein computational software: Autodock®, DS visualizer®, Hyperchem®

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

·  Committee member Chemistry Department Graduate Committee, Marquette University, 2004-2006

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

·  American Chemical society, 2004-present

·  American Society for biochemistry and molecular Biology 2007-present

AWARDS

·  2007 ASBMB Washington DC Travel award for a poster presentation

·  2006-07 Graduate School Research Assistantship

·  2004 ASBMB San Diego Travel award for a poster presentation

·  2010 American Heart Association research fellowship grant

PUBLICATIONS

Articles

1. Phani Kumar Pullela, Taurai Chiku, Michael J. Caravan III, Daniel S. Sem. “Fluorescence-based detection of thiols in vitro and in vivo with DSSA probes” Anal. Biochem. 2006, 352, 265-273*.*.(*A biotechnology development grant was awarded from Wisconsin state (USA) in the year 2006 for commercialization of DSSA fluorescent probes).

2. Taurai Chiku, Phani Kumar Pullela, Daniel S. Sem. “A dithiol coupled kinase and ATPase assay” J. Biomol. Screen. (2006), 11(7), 844-53

*A biotechnology development grant was awarded from Wisconsin state (USA) in the year 2006 for commercialization of DSSA fluorescent probes

3. Taurai Chiku, Dominique Padovani, Weidong Zhu, Sangita Singh, Victor Vitvitsky and Ruma Banerjee. H2S biogenesis by human Cystathionine γ-Lyase leads to the novel sulfur metabolites lanthionine and homolanthionine and is responsive to the grade of hyperhomocysteinemia. J. Biol. Chem. (2009), 248(17), 11601-11612

4. Sangita Singh, Dominique Padovani, Rachel A. Leslie, Taurai Chiku and Ruma Banerjee. The relative contributions of Cystathionine β-Synthase and Cystathionine γ-Lyase to H2S biogenesis via alternative transsulfuration reactions. J. Biol. Chem. June 2009

5. Ruma Banerjee, Taurai Chiku, Omer Kabil, Maroune Libiad, Nicole Motl and Oramod Yadav Methods in Enzymology; Ch 11: Assay methods for H2S biogenesis and catabolism enzymes; Hydrogen Sulfide in Redox Biology, Part A, Volume 554, 2015, Pages 189–200

Talks/Presentations

1. P. Phani Kumar, Taurai Chiku, Daniel S. Sem. Fluorescence Probes with Utility in Kinase Assay and Redox Sensing. ASBMB San Diego, CA, 2005.

2. T. Chiku, P. K. Pullela and D. Sem. A general dithiol-coupled UV Vis and fluorescence assay for kinases. ASBMB Washington DC, 2006.

3. Chiku, Taurai; Pullela, Phani Kumar; Sem, Daniel. Nucleotide thio-analogs as probes for kinase assay and dynamics studies. Abstracts, 37th Great Lakes Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Milwaukee, WI, May 31-June 2, 2006

4. Taurai Chiku, Weidong Zhu, Dominique Padovani, Sangita Singh, Victor Vitvitsky and Ruma Banerjee. . H2S biogenesis by human Cystathionine γ-Lyase leads to the novel sulfur metabolites lanthionine and homolanthionine and is responsive to the grade of hyperhomocysteinemia, Gordon Research Conference, Enzymes, Coenzymes and Metabolism, NH, July 5-10, 2009

REFERENCES

Available upon request