About Me:

I am from Bellevue, Washington right outside of Seattle.  I love science and knowledge and always have.  I came to Montana State University in the fall of '04 and will be out on time by the spring of '08.  I am going to receive my degree in Cell Biology and Neuroscience, and hopefully will have at least a minor in Microbiology.  I have been conducting undergraduate research in the McClure Bioinformatic Lab since the fall of '05.  After graduation I plan on earning a PhD and would like to do medical research.

 My Research:

I am currently working on the Mononegavirales project.  The purpose of the project is to determine potential regions and residues of protein:protein contact points in the replication/transcription complex without any structural information. The proposed Bioinformatic studies will proceed along three paths: prediction of disorder; determination of compensatory mutation; and assessment of evolutionary dynamics. The integration of assorted data sources (e.g., literature, predictions of protein disorder, compensatory mutation etc.) in a Bayesian framework can be used to infer probable protein:protein contacts in higher order complexes without three-dimensional structural information.  My contributions to the project will include the multiple alignment aspect as well as the phylogenetic reconstruction and compensatory mutation analysis.  All of which are prerequisites, respectively, for each other as well as prerequisites for prediction of amino acid contact points.  The prediction of intra- and intermolecular contacts for the replication/transcription complex is a definite precursor for medical avenues for prevention of critical diseases.