My research focuses on disordered proteins. These proteins are more likely to move around, which makes them look blurry when we examine them. Instead of blaming the camera, observers have often blamed the proteins. Because of this, fewer scientific resources have been directed toward the study of disordered proteins than their more structured siblings.
Like many researchers, I am interested in studying what has been ignored. Disordered proteins make up nearly half of the human proteome, and yet we still know very little about them. Their flexibility helps make us adaptable and versatile, but they can also make us sick. I investigate these questions with a particular interest in the proteins that make up the nucleolus.
Over the course of my scientific training, I have gone from unearthing 2-million-year-old mammalian fossils as a high schooler in South Africa, to now studying protein disorder on the atom scale. These experiences have reinforced a principle that underlies how I approach my work: to make discoveries, we need to think broadly across scales of length and time.
A weekend at Coopers D (2006)