William C. Wimley, PhD

Dr. Wimley received his B.S. in Biophysics from the University of Connecticut, Storrs in 1985 and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville in 1990. His postdoctoral studies were carried out in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of California at Irvine where he studied the structure, folding and design of proteins in membranes with Dr. Stephen H. White. During his postdoctoral tenure, Dr. Wimley received a three-year NRSA grant from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Wimley joined the Tulane faculty in 1998 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the Health Sciences Center. The primary theme of Dr. Wimley's research is the structure, folding and design of proteins in membranes. Much of his research utilizes peptide models of membrane proteins. His laboratory uses both traditional and combinatorial chemistry to design and engineer peptide models that assemble into membrane proteins or that interact with membrane proteins. One of the laboratory's current projects is the design of membrane-spanning peptide pores using combinatorial chemistry and high-throughput screening. Such molecules will be used in antibiotic drug design, in drug delivery and in biosensor engineering. Another project in the laboratory involves the use of combinatorial chemistry and high throughput screening to design peptides that specifically interact with receptors that are overexpressed in cancer, including G-protein coupled receptors and receptor tyrosine kinases. These molecules will be used to modulate receptor activities and to target the delivery of drugs and cytotoxic agents to specific cells. Finally, the laboratory is involved in genomic and proteomic analysis of genome databases. The goal of this work is to improve the recognition and identification of membrane proteins in genomes and to improve the prediction of their structure and function.

Wimley Lab Website:

Wimley Lab