Amy E. Keating

Associate Professor of Biology

Associate Member, Broad Institute

B.A. Harvard (physics) 1992

Ph.D. UCLA (physical organic chemistry) 1998

Postdoctoral training with Peter S. Kim and Bruce Tidor, MIT

Joined MIT faculty 2002

keating-at-mit.edu
617.452.3398
MIT 68-622a
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139

Graduate Students

Glenna Wink Foight (gwfoight-at-mit.edu)

My interests lie in examining the binding specificity of viral Bcl-2 homologues. Gamma-herpesviruses use their own versions of cellular Bcl-2 proteins to prevent apoptosis in the host cell. I am studying the binding specificity of these proteins through yeast surface display and structural analysis.

Jen Kaplan (jbkaplan-at-mit.edu)

The dichotomy between the core residues and surface positions in a coiled-coil dimer allow one to study ways to modulate stability without greatly affecting the interaction. I am looking at ways to enhance the stability of coiled-coil heterodimers without affecting the specificity of the interaction.

Christopher Negron (cnegron-at-mit.edu)

Modeling proteins is a complex problem due to the vast size of sequence, structure, and interaction space. My work focuses on developing and testing computational approaches that investigate this vast space for proteins with desired biophysical and biochemical properties. Of particular interest is the coiled-coil structural motif since its simplified structure aids in reducing the complexity of the design problem while still enabling access to a long list of biological functions.

Justin Jenson (jmjenson-at-mit.edu)

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Vincent Xue (vxue-at-mit.edu)

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Postdocs

Raheleh Rezaei Araghi (rezaei_r-at-mit.edu)

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Jeremy Curuksu (curuksu-at-mit.edu)

My research revolves around modeling and understanding protein-ligand interactions. I develop some methods that essentially drive the sampling of all-atom simulations toward a reasonable ensemble of solutions for a given input template. Experimental data produced in the Keating Lab on coiled-coils and bcl-2 systems are used as a benchmark. This will contribute to improve current strategies in design and structure prediction refinement. I am also interested in other in silico strategies that contribute to drug discovery and more generally the interface between mathematics and biology.

Joe DeBartolo (bartolo-at-mit.edu)

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Karl Hauschild (kehaus-at-mit.edu)

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Vladimir Potapov (potapov-at-mit.edu)

My research interests focus on the development of computational methods for design and prediction of protein interaction specificity. Using the coiled-coil motif as a model system, I combine structure-based modeling, machine learning and large-scale quantitative data to build predictive models. In collaboration with experimental scientists, I apply the developed models to design specific bZIP binders for use as protein reagents in synthetic biology or potential protein therapeutics.

Lothar Reich (kuranes-at-mit.edu)

Prediction and modeling of specific protein-protein interactions is of great interest for scientific research, the development of protein drugs and biotechnological applications at large. Although much progress has been made during the past two decades there are no general, robust techniques so far. I am combining high-throughput experimental tools with state-of-the-art computational procedures in order to develop novel modeling and design platforms for protein-protein interactions.

Technician

Christos M Kougentakis (cmk619-at-mit)

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