Research
The ultimate goal of research in this laboratory is to begin to understand the functional and organizational patterns underlying complex systems. One major focus of this laboratory has been the development of new technologies for comprehensive analysis of the responses of living cells to their environment at the molecular level. In particular, ones that can link protein structure information to genome sequence. The initial goal has been to achieve ultra-high throughput analysis of the majority of the proteins present in cells.
Several recent breakthroughs have made this new technology feasible. These include the development of new generation of new MALDI mass spectrometers, database search algorithms using mass mapping information, and our recently developed techniques for MALDI mass mapping directly from thin layer electrophoresis gels. These three methodologies together provide the potential for high-throughput, automated identification, and characterization of proteins from complex mixtures, providing a direct link between the structural information in the gene sequence databases with the functional information inherent in 2-D gels of cellular proteins. The first application of this technology is the development of virtual 2-D gel images of small genome organisms based on MALDI scans of isoelectric focusing gel separations of whole cell extracts. This technique will be particularly useful in the post-genome era and is also a research tool of immediate utility to many investigators.
Other projects in this laboratory include development of new separation technologies for analysis of membrane proteins, high loading separation methods compatible with electrospray MS, phosphoproteome analysis, and computational tools for analysis and management of large amounts of heterogeneous proteome information.