What are you currently working on that excites you? 

My research program has been focusing on membrane proteins, and particularly G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), for quite some time now. Our goal is to obtain rigorous mechanistic insights into the structure, dynamics, and function of these prominent drug targets for their use in the development of improved therapeutics. To this end, my lab uses several computational structural biology tools and rational drug design approaches, ranging from molecular modeling to bioinformatics, cheminformatics, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, enhanced sampling algorithms, free-energy perturbations, and, more recently, a variety of statistical methods and artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning tools. The promise of the latter for drug discovery has recently gained much attention, and we are committed to probinge AI tools in applications to membrane proteins, in close collaboration with molecular biologists, structural biologists, medicinal chemists, and experimental biophysicists, to possibly convert current media hype into validated technological advances in biomedicine. Moreover, we are excited at the prospect of further leveraging results from enhanced MD simulations and modern biophysical experimental techniques with AI technology and other statistical approaches to derive dynamic and kinetic elements of GPCR signaling, particularly those of  opioid receptor’s, at an atomic level of detail from experimentally elusive metastable states of these proteins and their ternary complexes.  

How do you stay on top of all the latest developments in your field? 

I always thought I learned more and faster in a class or group setting, or any situation that required in-person interactions. While Biophysical Society meetings, among others, allow me to stay on top of the latest developments in my field, I am amazed by how social media have impacted my most recent learning experience, notwithstanding their lack of in-person interactions.