I was a graduate student in the MIT Department of Chemistry from 1991 to 1998, working on the diiron-containing enzyme system Methane Monooxygenase (MMO) E.C.1.14.13.25. Stephen J. Lippard was my faculty advisor, who was awarded a 2004 National Medal of Science by President George W. Bush.

Portions of my thesis work were published as Coufal, D. E., Blazyk, J. L., Whittington, D. A., Wu, W. W., Rosenzweig, A. C. and Lippard, S. J., Eur. J. Biochem. 267, 2174-2185 (2000) and Coufal, D. E., Tavares, P., Pereira, A. S., Huynh, B. H., and Lippard, S. J., Biochemistry, 38, 4504-4513 (1999). The work of my UROP, Carisa Elise, was the genesis of this paper: Merkx, M. and Lippard, S. J., J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 277, Issue 8, 5858-5865.

Here's an online copy of my thesis:

• Thesis Front
• Chapter One
• Figure 1-1
• Figure 1-2
• Figure 1-3
• Figure 1-4
• Figure 1-5
• Figure 1-6
• Figure 1-7
• Figure 1-8
• Figure 1-9
• Figure 1-10
• Figure 1-11
• Figure 1-12
• Figure 1-13
• Figure 1-14
• Figure 1-15
• Figure 1-16
• Figure 1-17
• Figure 1-18
• Figure 1-19
• Table 1-1
• Table 1-2
• Chapter Two
• Figure 2-1
• Figure 2-2
• Figure 2-3
• Figure 2-4
• Figure 2-5
• Figure 2-6
• Figure 2-7
• Figure 2-8
• Figure 2-9
• Figure 2-10
• Figure 2-11
• Figure 2-12
• Figure 2-13
• Figure 2-14
• Figure 2-15
• Figure 2-16
• Figure 2-17
• Figure 2-18
• Figure 2-19
• Figure 2-20
• Figure 2-21
• Figure 2-22
• Chapter Three
• Figure 3-1
• Figure 3-2
• Figure 3-3
• Figure 3-4
• Figure 3-5
• Figure 3-6
• Figure 3-7
• Figure 3-8
• Figure 3-9
• Figure 3-10
• Figure 3-11
• Table 3-1
• Table 3-2
• Table 3-3
• Table 3-4
• Thesis Signatures 1
• Thesis Signatures 2
• Thesis Back

Thesis © 1998 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved.

Page © 2011 David Coufal. All rights reserved.