Julia Krushkal

Current Projects in My Lab

My research interests focus in the area of bioinformatics. In particular, I am interested in applying computational algorithms to genome data. I am currently involved in several such projects.

Computational Identification of Transcription Regulatory Elements in Geobacteraceae

In collaboration with the laboratory of Dr. Derek Lovley at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and other members of the Geobacter project, we participate in genome analysis of metal reducing bacteria, Geobacteracea. The focus of my laboratory is to predict operon structure and identify likely transcription factor binding sites using genome data from closely related species of Geobacteraceae. This project is sponsored by the Genomes to Life program of the U. S. Department of Energy.

Analysis of Human and Viral Regulators of Complement Activation

This project uses computational methods to study the evolution of regulator of complement activation (RCA) proteins and other proteins that contain tandem short consensus repeats (SCRs). Such repeats are 60-70 amino acids in length. The obviously have functional significance, because sequence similarity can be determined between repeats obtained from species as diverse as human and sponge. Our goal is to explore the evolution of such repeats and try to predict their functional role that may affect their pathogenic properties.

Computational Analysis of Human Genetic Variation

This project involves computational analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and microsatellite markers (VNTRs). I am interested in both developing computational methods that allow one to locate genes and mutations related to human disease, and in application of these methods to experimental data.

This page last updated: 05-05-2003