Minorities in the Aquatic Sciences

My research involves the study of ribonuleotide reductases. Ribonucleotide reductases (RNRs) catalyze the conversion of nucleotides to deoxynucleotides in all organisms thus playing a central role in DNA synthesis and repair. The partucular enzymes studied were cloned from archaeal organisms found in extreme enviromnents from around the world. These organisms are thought to be of ancient lineage and as such can give us a glimpse of the evolutionary development of life.

Genomic data reveals a large percentage of hypothetical proteins that have no homology to any characterized protein in the data banks. These unique sets of proteins give these organisms the ability to live in extremely adverse environments making them ideal targets for boiremediation and green chemistry studies. My interests lie in studying the unique metabolic reactions that occur in these organisms to develop methods for dealing with the increasing quantity of biologically sensitive molecules which are accumulating in the environment.