Discovering New Biochemistry from Biological Conflicts

I obtained my PhD (computational biology) in 1999 from Texas A & M University, though I did most of my dissertation research at the NIH. Resuming my research as a staff scientist at the NLM/NIH in 2000, I started my own lab at the same place at the beginning of 2002. My research encompasses the evolutionary classification of proteins, the prediction of novel biochemical activities and the inference of organismal biology from comparative sequence, structure and genome analysis. My research team and I have made several discoveries, predicting previously unknown enzymatic and ligand interactions of numerous protein domains, novel transcription factors and understanding the interplay between natural selection and structural/genomic constraints in shaping the diversity of protein domains. The fundamental contributions of my lab include the discovery of key proteins participating in RNA biochemistry, protein stability, DNA modification, toxin systems involved in biological conflicts, apoptosis and novel immune mechanisms (e.g., key components of the CRISPR systems) and providing the theoretical framework for their functioning. I have developed the synthetic hypothesis on the role of biological conflicts in shaping biochemical innovation and major evolutionary transitions. Trainees (postdocs and students)from my lab have gone on to become faculty in institutions around the world or serve in the industry.