User:David E. Volk

Areas of Expertise

1. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy
   1. Protein NMR Structures
      1. West Nile virus ED3
      2. Omsk Hemorhagic fever ED3
      3. Dengue 4 virus
      4. Yellow fever virus
   2. DNA Structures
      1. Benzo[a]pyrene-adducted (carcinogenic) DNA
      2. Oxidatively Damaged DNA
      3. Thioaptamer DNA
   3. Metabonomics/Metabolomics
2. Quantum Mechanics
   1. DNA:DNA Interactions
   2. DNA:Metal Interactions
3. Lewis Acid Chemistry
   1. AlCl3 and Et2AlCl mediated ring opening reactions
   2. SnCl4 mediated ring opening reactions
4. Protein Expression & Purification
5. Molecular Mechanics

Areas of General Competence

• Physical/Organic Chemistry
• Molecular Biology
• Structural Biology
• Physics
• Mathematics
• Computer Programming
  • Pascal
  • Perl
  • C++
• MAcromolecular Purification Methods
• Surface Plasmon Resonance (Biacore)
• Binding thermodynamics and kinetics

Hobbies

• Base Guitar
• Texas Holdem'
• Bird Watching

Education & Background

David E. Volk holds a bachelors degree in mathematics and physics from Minot State (ND) University, and a Ph.D (1995) in physical organic chemistry from North Dakota State University. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Duke University Medical Center under Leonard Spicer and is currently a research scientist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, TX. Currently his work focuses on studying the solution structures of DNA and proteins that are important to human health or diseases using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. These studies involve the West Nile, Yellow Fever, Omsk Hemorhaggic Fever and Dengue fever viruses. Other studies involved both structure and quantum mechanics studies of damaged DNA, such as oxidized DNA or adducted DNA. Most recently, he has initiated many metabonomics studies at UTMB. Visit Dr. Volk's UTMB Page for more information and links to his publications.