METHODS OF MICROBIOLOGY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

Biography:

Professor Emeritus Norio Matsushima, Sapporo Medical University completed his doctorate in polymer physics at the Hokkaido University in 1976. In 1986-1988 joined the University of Virginia, USA, as the visiting associate professor. He is the head of Institute of Tandem Repeats. He has studied in the fields of protein science, biophysics, and bioinformatics. He has performed experimental research of protein structures in solutions by small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). His recent research is the sequence analysis, structure, and evolution of leucine-rich repeats (LRRs) in proteins. He identified many non-canonical LRRs from bacteria using protein database. He has published over 90 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Research Interests:

Tandem repeats occur in ∼14% of the proteins of less than 2,000 residues. Recent analyses indicate that the proportion of proteins containing tandem repeats varies greatly between different families and even species (3 - 35% of the total protein content); proteins containing single amino acid repeats and dipeptide repeats typically account for 0.5 - 1.0% of the total protein content. Understanding the structures, functions, and evolution of these repeats is a significant goal in both proteomics and genomics.