Research area: comparative genomics and virtual screening.

Summer research project (2010): antibiotic drug discovery at Demuris Ltd.

Project paper: Using Comparative Genomics and Virtual Screening for Antibiotic Drug Discovery
Supplement: here

Project source code: github: virtual screening

Some bacteria are helpful while are others are pathogenic and may cause illness or death. The development of antibiotics was one of the biggest medical achievements of the 20th century. Unfortunately, some pathogenic bacteria have evolved to resist penicillin and many other antibiotics. For more general information, Wikipedia provides an extensive article about bacteria. I used comparative genomics to identify bacterial proteins as potential drug targets, and virtual screening to identify chemical compounds that bind strongly to those proteins. Chemical compounds were selected for lab tests and measured for their antimicrobial properties.

Cartoon by Nick Kim