Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Office:  C-211A BNSN

Office Phone:  801-422-4917

Email:  greg_burton@byu.edu

Education  

BS, University of Utah (1975)

MS, Brigham Young University (1985)

Ph.D., Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University (1989)

PostDoctoral, Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University (1989-1991)

Research Interests

I am primarily involved with the role of the follicular dendritic cell in HIV pathogenesis.  This cell’s claim to fame is that it serves as a “Hoover” that collects little bits of antigens from infectious diseases and releases them later for the purpose of reminding the body what it needs to make antibodies.  In the case of HIV, this repository of antigens becomes a reservoir of infectious virus which is maintained on the surface of the cell for long periods of time in an infectious state.  We are also interested in how this cell might serve as a sight for some malignancies, primarily lymphomas.  A common manifestation of AIDS is non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), which comes about as a result of the immunosuppression HIV causes.  In an immunosuppressed background we are very interested in knowing whether this cell might create a very unique microenvironment that allows the events associated with the development of lymphomas to occur.

Student Involvement/Requirements

 I will train between 2 and 3 undergraduates.  The training they receive is in three areas.  First, the students participate in a journal club in which they go out each week and scour the literature, and report back on the hypotheses, research methods and conclusions of current research, and then as a group, discuss how that might relate to our own research emphasis.  Second, we hold a weekly meeting in which each student who is doing research in the laboratory reports on accomplishments during the last week, trouble-shooting problems and setting goals for the coming week.  In this meeting we also talk about the graduates’ research so that each of us knows what is happening in the lab and where it helping us to progress.

  I start taking undergraduates between their sophomore and junior year.  These students must meet the following requirements in order to be considered for work in my lab:

            1.)  Micro 351

            2.)  Inorganic Chemistry

 Biochemistry is helpful and strongly encouraged.  Student must also be able to attend weekly lab meetings.  The work is publication oriented and undergraduates appear on the publications.  This research is funded by NIH, and more particularly by NIAID.

Publications