Researcher Background
Primary Academic Title
Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, WashU Medicine
Training
- 2017 - 2019: Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
Education
- 2010: MBioch, University of Oxford, University of Oxford, UK
- 2011: MSc, Imperial College London, UK
- 2017: PhD, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
Research & Select Publications
Research Interest
We work on understanding the molecular basis for how intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) carry out cellular functions, and how this goes wrong in disease. Disordered regions are protein regions that lack a fixed 3D structure in solution, instead occupying highly heterogenous collection of interconverting conformations. Given almost every cancer-associated protein contains larger IDRs, this is a rich area for us in terms of relating molecular biophysics to human disease. Our goal is to enable the mechanistic interpretation of mutations in IDRs in the context of cancer – i.e. how and why do mutations cause disordered regions to misfunction, and – ultimately – how can we address those vulnerabilities through therapeutic intervention.
Research Publications