Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Stephen L. Mayo

Bren Professor of Biology and Chemistry and Vice Provost of Research at the California Institute of Technology

Professor Mayo received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. He completed his postdoctoral training as a Miller Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and with Robert Baldwin at Stanford University. His laboratory at Caltech combines theoretical, computational, and experimental approaches for the study of structural biology, which has led to the development of the computational protein design software packages ORBIT and PHOENIX. In addition to the development of new computational tools, his group applies these tools to a variety of protein engineering problems including protein stabilization, enzyme design, small molecule receptors, optimization of the spectral properties of fluorescent proteins, and novel protein-protein interfaces.  He was also a cofounder of Molecular Simulations, Inc. (currently Accelrys) and Xencor.  In 2004, Dr. Mayo was elected to the National Academy of Sciences for his pioneering contributions to the field of protein design.

Dr. Brian Kuhlman

Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Professor Kuhlman received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the State University of New York at Stony Brook under the direction of Daniel Raleigh and was a Damon Runyon postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of David Baker at the University of Washington. He is a recipient of the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology and the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize. He is currently a W.M. Keck Distinguished Young Scholar in Medical Research. He has co-authored 45 refereed manuscripts in the field of protein design and folding and is a primary developer of the protein design module for the molecular modeling program Rosetta. His laboratory is focused on developing and testing new methods for de novo protein design, protein interface design, and the design of molecular switches.