Laurence H. Baker Center for Bioinformatics and Biological Statistics

Macromolecular Structure & Function Research

Our faculty members are using multiple, complementary approaches to understand macromolecular structure/function relationships. Several participants are utilizing the wealth of information that can be extrapolated by tracing patterns of evolutionary change. One project builds upon the work of three faculty members (Carpenter, A. Miller, Voytas) who have interests in virus and transposable element biology, particularly the many protein and protein-nucleic acid interactions that regulate virus or transposon gene expression and replication. Participants in this research project are trying to discern molecular functional and structural information from natural variability observed among viral or transposable element populations. More recently, these studies have benefited from collaborations with members of the molecular modeling group (Cornette, Ho, Dobbs, Jernigan, Ashlock) and structural biologists (Andreotti, Hargrove, Honzatko).

Our faculty also have interests in molecular modeling, and they meet weekly to discuss problems of protein structure prediction. Among these are participants from physics (Ho), computer science (L. Miller, Honavar), mathematics (Ashlock, Cornette) and the biological sciences (Andreotti, Hargrove, Honzatko, Dobbs, Jernigan and Naylor).

E-mail: lhb.bioinformatics@iastate.edu
URL: http://www.bioinformatics.iastate.edu/