Wonpil Im joins the faculty of the Center for Bioinformatics

April 15, 2005

The Center for Bioinformatics is happy to announce that Dr. Wonpil Im of the Scripps Research Institute joins the Center in August 2005. Dr. Im is an outstanding researcher with top-level credentials in modeling of membrane proteins and physicochemical aspects of molecular biology. The Center is fortunate to acquire his unique expertise in this critical area of structural bioinformatics and computational biology.

Wonpil Im received B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Chemistry from Hanyang University, Seoul, in 1994 and 1996. He received Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York in 2002 (Professor Benoit Roux), focusing on theoretical study of ion permeation and selectivity in OmpF porin and its mutants by molecular dynamics simulations, Grand Canonical Monte Carlo - Brownian Dynamics, and Poisson-Nernst-Planck electrodiffusion theory. In 2002 he became a member of the group of Professor Charles L. Brooks, III at the Scripps Research Institute, where he has been working on insertion, folding, and assembly of membrane proteins and peptides by utilizing and extending generalized Born electrostatics theory. His research at KU will focus on the applications of theoretical and computational methods to chemical and physical problems in biology. Dr. Im joins the Center in the rank of assistant professor, with a joint appointment in the Department of Molecular Biosciences.