Research Interests and Accomplishments

Dr. Keehwan Kwon joined The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) as a Staff Scientist in 2004.  As a group leader in the Pathogen Functional Genomics Resource Center, he has directed the design and development of high throughput recombinant protein expression platforms, including construction of specialized expression vectors, implementation of automation and purification methods, and protein functional assays using fluorescence- and protein microarray-based strategies. Thus, a protein production pipeline was established that has resulted in the expression of more than 3000 genes derived from a variety of pathogenic bacteria, e.g. Streptococcus pneumonia, Bacillus anthracis, Yersinia pestis, Staphylococcus aureus and Francisella tularensis.

One of Dr. Kwon's major research interests is to use the combination of expressed proteins and assay platforms to determine the function of many uncharacterized and hypothetical proteins. In this context, Dr. Kwon's team has established assays to screen for protease and transcription factor activities as well as a variety of ligand-binding functions (DNA, carbohydrates, protein-protein interactions part of multi-subunit complexes). Another main interest area is to characterize the response of the human immune system to bacterial infection, using a protein microarray-based platform. His team also clones and expresses target genes from more than 20 microbial species, an effort related to the NIAID's Center for Structural Genomics of Infectious Disease. Candidate proteins are determined for scale-up protein purification followed by X-ray crystallography.

Dr. Keehwan Kwon received his undergraduate education in Genetic Engineering at Korea University in Seoul, Korea, in 1991. Dr. Kwon received his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry in 2000 studying in the laboratory of Dr. Beckett at the University of Maryland where he biochemically and biophysically characterized the role of a flexible loop of E. coli biotin ligase (BirA) in allosterism for gene regulation and enzymatic functions. Dr. Kwon continued his research as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Stivers at Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology (CARB) and at the School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, where he studied kinetic aspects of the activities of vaccinia virus topoisomerase I and DNA repair enzymes (uracil DNA glycosylase and 3-methyladenine DNA glycosylase I) and also developed a high throughput method for screening vaccinia virus topoisomerase I inhibitors.

Patents

Assays for Identification of Topoisomerase Inhibitors, WO2006/015369 (Pending).

Fluorescence Assay for Type IB DNA Topoisomerase, PCT/US2005/027605 (Pending).

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