Detailed Biography:

Research Interest: Function of antimicrobial peptides Leukocytes, epithelial cells and glands produce endogenous antimicrobial peptides that serve as natural antibiotics. Our laboratory examines these antimicrobial peptides at many levels, from their initial discovery (by "grind and find" biochemistry), to characterizing their structure (by sequencing and cloning) , and then trying to figure out how they work (by any methods that we can). During the past decade, we have discovered antibiotic peptides produced by humans, rabbits, rodents, horses, pigs and birds. Possibly that is why it’s so hard to keep our lab clean. We have been occupied for the past few years examining a family of antibiotic peptides called protegrins, and have just started to look for antimicrobial factors in human tears. We are also purifying various antimicrobial peptides from the hemocytes of tunicates (sea-squirts), simple marine protochordate ancestors of the vertebrates.