I am currently working in the biopharmaceutical field for the second time in my life – the first being 20 years ago when I was first out of undergrad and still in Seattle. I mostly do biophysics and run projects.
After my post-doc I stayed in Toronto for another five years and worked as a research associate with The Structural Genomics Consortium at the University of Toronto. As part of the Biophysical Characterization group, I had a variety of responsibilities, many of which were directed towards furthering our understanding of proteins as physical molecules. These included:
- development of activity assays (proteases, DUbs, PPIs)
- high-throughput screening of small-molecule libraries
- isothermal titration calorimetry
- circular dichroism spectroscopy
- LC/MS (ESI)
I did my post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Julie D. Forman-Kay at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario. I did my graduate work with Dr. Brenda L. Bass at the University of Utah. For my doctoral thesis, I characterized the interaction of the zinc finger protein dsRBP-ZFa with dsRNA and RNA-DNA hybrids. More about my graduate research can be found here.While I was a post-doc, I also performed many computer system administration tasks for the Forman-Kay and Kay laboratories as well as for a few other laboratories in Toronto. I have a separate page for Linux related information.
MOLMOL 2K2
On 3 June 2003, I uploaded some molmol2k2 rpms for Red Hat 9 and tar.gz packaged binaries for your enjoyment. Go here for info.
Post-doctoral Research
During my post-doc, I investigated how molecular dynamics affect biological function. This encomapasses both the role of motion in modulating binding affinity and specificity as well as the role of dynamics in enzyme catalysis and protein function in general.
I used NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) and calorimetry techniques to obtain structural, dynamic and thermodynamic information about protein-peptide interactions. The peptides were model ligands derived from larger proteins, frequently receptor molecules involved in signal transduction.
Projects:
- Measurement of backbone and side chain methyl dynamics in the SH2 protein SAP. I have characterized the free protein as well as complexes with phosphorylated and unphosphorylated peptides derived from the Y281 site of SLAM. This work was recently published in JMB. I also recently put the NMR relaxation data I measured online in tabular format. This file contains the 15N T1 and T2 relaxation rates, 1H-15N steady state NOE ratios, and 2H Dz and Dy relaxation rates.
- Measurement of backbone and side-chain methyl dynamics for a peptide derived from the pTyr-1021 site of PDGFR (pY1021) in the free state and bound to the C-terminal SH2 domain of PLC-g1 (PLCC). This work has been completed and a paper describing the results has been published (see below).
- Thermodynamic characterization of the interaction of the PLCC SH2 domain and the pY1021 peptide using isothermal titration calorimetry. (currently unpublished data)
Literature References:
I compiled a brief list of references relevant to my post-doc work. Even though some are out of date, this will certainly give you a better idea about my scientific interests at the time.