Training and Research Experience
I'm a protein scientist and computational structural biologist working at the interface of protein engineering, structural biology, molecular simulation, AI-guided biomolecular design, and cancer drug discovery. My training spans protein engineering and synthetic biology, protein X-ray crystallography, molecular dynamics simulation, computational protein design, and structure-based drug discovery; and I'm at my best where those areas meet.
I'm currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center where I work on computational structural biology and cancer-focused drug discovery projects. More broadly, I build tools and devise end-to-end computational and experimental workflows to study and develop therapeutic and diagnostic biologics against cancer drivers, with a particular focus on kinases. Much of this combines classical structural biology with the state-of-the-art and emerging AI tools for biomolecular structure modeling and design.
My PhD research focused primarily on developing accessible strategies for engineering and reprogramming protease substrate specificity using directed evolution and computational protein design. I developed PASCAR (acronym for proteolysis-triggered bacterial suicide and antibiotic resistance), a dual positive and negative selection platform for engineering protease substrate specificity.
My work with MD simulations led me to build CHAPERONg, a computational program for automated GROMACS-based MD simulations and trajectory analyses. Written in Bash and Python, it automates the entire protein (and protein complexes) MD simulation pipelines for conventional and enhanced (umbrella) sampling simulations whilst maintaining the flexibility that GROMACS offers. It also automates extensive analyses of MD simulation trajectories.
More recently, I developed Subtimizer, a computational workflow for structure-guided design of potent and selective substrates for kinases.
Because my research has always involved putting SOTA tools and approaches in computational structural biology under real load (drug discovery problems and biosensor design), I tend to follow the literature and latest advancements very closely. I systematically track what I read and/or test, and I share them through the BioMoDes repository as a collection of SOTA and emerging tools and methods for biomolecular modeling and design. I also share the updates on the BioMoDes repository via my free weekly "BioMoDes and Top Reads" newsletter.
You can find more details about my research interests and publications on my Research Interest page.
Education
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PhD, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology2023 University of Science and Technology of China, China
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MSc, Biochemistry2016 University of Ilorin, Nigeria
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BSc, Biochemistry2013 University of Ilorin, Nigeria
Selected Awards and Honors
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TWAS-CAS President's Doctoral Fellowship2017 – 2021
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USTC Doctoral Scholarship2021 – 2022
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D.E. Shaw Research (DESRES) Fellow2024
Selected Memberships
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Full member, Sigma Xi Honor Society2025 –
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Member, American Chemical Society2025 –
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Member, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology2024 –
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Member, International Society for Computational Biology2024 –