John Karanicolas joins the Center for Bioinformatics faculty

June 25, 2008

The Center for Bioinformatics is pleased to announce Dr. John Karanicolas as its newest faculty member. Dr. Karanicolas is an expert at using structure-based methods to design new protein-protein interactions. He looks forward to applying this expertise to study the interactions between cytokines and their receptors: predicting cytokine/receptor specificities, and redesigning with altered specificity. Dr. Karanicolas additionally validates computational predictions and designs through experimental characterization.

Dr. Karanicolas was granted a PhD from The Scripps Research Institute in 2003. He carried out his graduate studies in the laboratory of Professor Charles L. Brooks III, where he studied protein folding through analysis of molecular dynamics simulations.

He has since completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Professor David Baker, at the University of Washington. Here, Dr. Karanicolas carried out theoretical and/or experimental aspects of several design projects, including altering the allosteric mechanism of integrin signal transduction and designing a peptide to inhibit tau fibril formation. His postdoctoral accomplishments culminated in his design of a de novo protein-protein interface from two proteins with no natural affinity for each other.

Dr. Karanicolas stresses his enthusiasm to apply protein design methodology as an effective means to deconstruct the complexity in a system of particular biomedical interest, cytokine signaling. Carefully designed molecules will reduce cytokine signaling to a series of single well-defined responses, allowing clear delineation of these complex pathways and leading to a new class of therapeutics.

Dr. Karanicolas joins the Center at the rank of assistant professor, with a joint appointment in the Department of Molecular Biosciences.