D. Phil. - University of Oxford, 1970
Professor
Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology
9600 Gudelsky Dr.
Rockville, MD 20850 USA
Phone: (301)-738-6241
Email:
jmoult@carb.nist.gov
Research: Theoretical and applied computational analysis of protein structure, function, and design
My Theoretical analysis includes the nature of protein folding pathways (1); an analysis of the complexity of folding (5); and the role of chaos in folding. Applied folding studies aim at developing effective methods of predicting structure from sequence through the implementation of more thorough search algorithms and the evolution of discriminatory functions better able to reliably distinguish between correct and incorrect structures. Search methods currently studied are molecular dynamics (7); Monte Carlo (8); co-operative methods, in particular genetic algorithms (6,10); graph based methods; and dynamic pathway models. New methods of assessing available search methods and potentials are being developed, through the organization of large scale objective structure prediction experiments (9), and the implementation of web based collaborative systems.
Computational methods are also being used to guide experimental studies, through the development of protein- ligand docking methods (3), mutational studies of signal transduction (4) in a muscle protein, the analysis of the catalytic mechanisms and specificity of enzymes (2), and studies of mutational and chemical modifications of hemoglobin, aimed at producing a better blood substitute (11).
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