Bruce A. Luxon, Ph.D.

Professor

Affiliations: Department of Human Biological Chemistry & Genetics; Director, UTMB Bioinformatics Program; Deputy Director, Sealy Center for Structural Biology; Senior Scientist, Center for Biodefense; Scientist, Sealy Center for Vaccine Development; Faculty, W.M. Keck Center for Computational Biology; Faculty, Gulf Coast Consortium for Bioinformatics; Member, National Center for Chemical and Biodefense

Phone: (409) 747-6802
Fax: (409) 747-6850
Email: bruce@hbcg.utmb.edu

Education

• B.S. 1974 University of Illinois, Chicago
• M.S. 1976 University of Illinois, Chicago
• Ph.D. 1977 University of Illinois, Chicago

research interests

Our major areas of interest are Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. We are particularly active in the determination of biomolecular solution structures using multidimensional NMR, including DNA, DNA-drug complexes, proteins and protein-DNA complexes. We also do a considerable amount of work on antisense biotherapeutics with emphasis on the targeted delivery of dithioate-modified oligonucleotides into specific cell types. These efforts will help provide insight into the mechanisms of cancer and AIDS (as well as other diseases) and the design of sequence-specific anticancer, antiviral and antibiotic nucleic acid binding drugs. We are also particularly interested in protein-DNA recognition motifs and their dynamical interactions.

Another active area of research is in the development of computer software tools to push the state of the art in hybrid relaxation matrix analysis of multidimensional NMR data for molecular structural determinations. While we continue the refinement of the MORASS 2D NMR complete relaxation matrix program suite, a new project is the development of a 3D Hybrid Hybrid matrix methodology to refine larger (>15,000 Dalton) biomolecules using 3D NOE-NOE Spectroscopy.

In our studies we routinely perform ab initio molecular orbital, molecular dynamics/mechanics and perturbational free energy calculations and create state-of-the-art molecular graphics. We have been particularly active in developing World Wide Web tools for the interactive manipulation and dissemination of NMR and structural biological data and information.

Selected Publications

Lee, Y., Volk, D.E., Thiviyanathan, V., Kleerekoper, Q., Gribenko, A.V., Zhang, S., Gorenstein, D.G., Makhatadze, G.I., and Luxon, B.A., “Letter to the Editor: NMR structure of the Apo-S100P protein.” J Biomol NMR, 29, 399-402 (2004).

Szaniszlo, P., Wang, N., Sinha, M., Reece, L.M., Van Hook, J.W., Luxon, B.A., and Leary, J.F., “Getting the right cells to the array: Gene expression microarray analysis of cell mixtures and sorted cells.”, Cytometry; 59A(2), 191-202 (2004).

Bhatia, V., Sinha. M., Luxon, B., and Garg, N., “Utility of the Trypanosoma cruzi Sequence Database for Identification of Potential Vaccine Candidates by In Silico and In Vitro Screening.” Infection and Immunity, 72, 11, 6245-6254 (2004).

Bigger, C.B., Guerra, B., Brasky, K.M., Hubbard, G., Beard, M.R., Luxon, B.A., Lemon, S.M., and Lanford, R.E., “Intrahepatic Gene Expression During hronic Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Chimpanzees.”, J Virology, 78, 24, 13779-13792 (2004).

Brasier, A.R., Spratt, H., Wu, Z., Boldogh, S., Zhang, Y., Garofalo, R., Casola, A., Pashmi, J., Haag, A., Luxon, B., and Kurosky, A., “ Nuclear Heat Shock Response and Novel Nuclear Domain 10 Reorganization in Respiratory Syncytial Virus-Infected A549 Cells Identified by High Resolution 2D Gel Electrophoresis.” J. Virology 78:21, 11461-11476; (2004).

Gatalica, Z., Velagaleti, G., Kuivaniemi, H., Tromp, G., Palazzo, J., Graves, K.M., Guigneaux, M., Wood, T., Sinha, M., and Luxon, B.A., “Gene Expression Profile of an Adenomyo- epithelioma of the Breast with a Reciprocal Translocation Involving Chromosomes 8 and 16.”, Cancer Genetics and Cytogenetics, 156: 1, 14-22; (2005).