John is an Atlanta native, he received his BS in Biology from Georgia State University and his MS in Biology from University of Minnesota. His prior research work included studying post-translationally modifying enzymes (kinases, deacetylases, proteases) and learning their preferred substrate motifs so that biosensors to monitor their activity could be created. To do this he performed HPLC-MS experiments to generate post-translationally modified substrates, then used big data analysis in R, Python and Java to analyze the substrates for patterns of which amino acids tended to be located near the modification site. He also incorporated structural information from molecular dynamics simulations and binding assays to better assess how the enzyme interacts with its substrates. From there he was able to determine the preferred substrate motif of these enzymes and use that to create peptide biosensors to report their activity.

Member since June 2021