Biography

David Baker is Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Washington and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received his Ph.D. degree in biochemistry with Randy Schekman at the University of California, Berkeley and did postdoctoral work in biophysics with David Agard at UC San Francisco. His research group is focused on the prediction and design of macromolecular structures, interactions and functions. Dr. Baker received young investigator awards from the National Science Foundation and the Beckman Foundation, and the Packard Foundation Fellowship in Science and Engineering. He has also received the Irving Sigal Young Investigator Award from the Protein Society and the Overton Prize from the International Society of Computational Biology. He is a recipient of the Feynman Prize from the Foresight Institute and the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize, and was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

 

David Baker, Ph.D.

Professor of Biochemistry & HHMI Investigator
University of Washington

www.gs.washington.edu/faculty/baker.htm
 www.depts.washington.edu/bakerpg/

Prediction and Design of Macromolecular Structures and Interactions

Abstract:
I will discuss recent advances in protein structure prediction and design. In the structure prediction area, I will discuss recent advances in high resolution protein structure prediction and the rosetta@home distributed computing project. In the protein design area, I will describe our current efforts towards (1) designing novel enzymes catalyzing reactions not catalyzed by naturally occurring enzymes, (2) designing new homing endonucleases which cleave specifically within genes of therapeutic importance for use in gene therapy, (3) designing novel high affinity protein-protein interfaces, and (4) designing vaccines for HIV.