Our lab is recruiting graduate students and postdocs

 

Intrinsically disordered proteins, from regulatory mechanisms to diseases and protein engineering

Research

Over 30% of the human genome encodes intrinsically disordered protein regions. Despite being unstructured, intrinsically disordered regions are essential for cell survival and exert regulatory functions by encoding phosphorylation sites. However, the full impact of these regulatory mechanisms on cellular functions is still largely unknown.

My lab seeks to understand the regulation roles of intrinsically disordered regions of proteins, and how these protein regions are involved in human diseases, and the potential to use disordered protein regions for protein engineering. Towards these goals, we use an array of biophysical approaches including NMR, X-ray, SAXS, and various fluorescence spectroscopies. This diverse array of techniques will allow us to characterize both the dynamic and structural aspects of disordered regions. These biophysical observations will then be assessed for their functional consequences using in vivo techniques. The culmination of our research efforts will result in a complete understanding (structural and functional) of how intrinsically disordered regions regulate cellular processes.

Our research projects are supported by National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.