Background:

Dr. Butenas received his Ph.D. In Organic Chemistry from the Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania in 1985. His postdoctoral work at the Institute of Biochemistry, Vilnius, Lithuania focused on developing and synthesizing substrates for serine proteases. His work resulted in the development of a new class of ultrasensitive fluorogenic substrates and methods based on them for the quantitation of serine proteses involved in blood coagulation and fibrinolysis. He joined the Biochemistry Department in 1991 as part of the group led by Dr. Kenneth G. Mann, which investigates processes of blood coagulation and its regulation.

Research Interests:

Coagulation Biology & Disease
Enzymology

Project Description:

As a member of a productive research group working in the field of blood coagulation Dr. Butenas participates in the search for answers to fundamental questions: How the blood clots? Which individual proteins and which complexes of proteins play the most important role in the initiation, propagation and termination of blood coagulation? How natural and synthetic agents do regulate these processes? In an attempt to better understand the blood coagulation process, a few in vitro models of blood coagulation were developed in the laboratory led by Dr. Mann (Biochemistry). Dr. Butenas employs one of these models, a synthetic coagulation proteome model, in his research. In this model, purified proteins involved in blood coagulation and its regulation are mixed together and the reaction is initiated with tissue factor, i.e. with the protein, which triggers the blood clotting in vivo. He uses this model for answers to the above questions as well as for the understanding why and how protein deficiencies or variations in their concentrations, occurring in vivo, affect blood coagulation.