David Baker (born October 6, 1962 in Seattle, Washington[citation needed]) is an American biochemist and computational biologist who studies

methods to predict thethreedimensional structures of proteins. He is a Professor of Biochemistry at theUniversity of Washington (UW),[1] where he is the principal investigator of the 60+ member Baker laboratory. He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and is also a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences.

Life[edit]
The Baker laboratory developed the Rosetta algorithm for ab initio protein structure prediction, which has been extended to adistributed computing project calledRosetta@Home[2] and Foldit.[3][4] The project aims to produce structural models forprotein complexes as well as individual polypeptide chains. The Baker group participates regularly and is recognized for expertise in the CASP structure prediction experiment using ab initio methods, including both manually assisted and automated variants of the Rosetta protocol. Members of the Baker group are also active in the field of protein design; they are recognized as the first group to have designed a protein, known as Top7, with an entirely novel fold.[citation needed] Baker did his graduate work in biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in the laboratory of Randy Schekman, where he worked predominantly on protein transport and trafficking in yeast. He did his postdoctoral work with David Agard of University of California, San Francisco. Although well known for development of methods for computational prediction of protein structure and function, Baker is focused on the use of computational methods to drive experimental assessment of biology and therefore the Baker laboratory maintains an active experimental biochemistry group. For his work on protein folding, Baker received the 2008 Sackler International Prize in Biophysics.[5] Baker was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciencesin 2009.[6] He is married to Hannele Ruohola-Baker, another biochemist at UW. They have two children, Benjamin and Amanda, both of whom are currently attending Garfield High School in Seattle.

Publications[edit]
Computational work[edit]

Vincent, J. J.; Tai, C. H.; Sathyanarayana, B. K.; Lee, B. (2005). "Assessment of CASP6 predictions for new and nearly new fold targets". Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics 61: 6783. doi:10.1002/prot.20722. PMID 16187347. edit

Bradley, P.; Malmstrm, L.; Qian, B.; Schonbrun, J.; Chivian, D.; Kim, D. E.; Meiler, J.; Misura, K. M. S.; Baker, D. (2005). "Free modeling with Rosetta in CASP6". Proteins:

Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics 61: 128 134. doi:10.1002/prot.20729.PMID 16187354. edit

Kuhlman, B.; Dantas, G.; Ireton, G.; Varani, G.; Stoddard, B.; Baker, D. (2003). "Design of a novel globular protein fold with atomic-level accuracy". Science 302(5649): 1364 1368. Bibcode:2003Sci...302.1364K. doi:10.1126/science.1089427.PMID 14631033. edit

Gray, J.; Moughon, S.; Wang, C.; Schueler-Furman, O.; Kuhlman, B.; Rohl, C.; Baker, D. (2003). "Protein-protein docking with simultaneous optimization of rigid-body displacement and side-chain conformations". Journal of Molecular Biology 331 (1): 281 299. doi:10.1016/S0022-2836(03)00670-3. PMID 12875852. edit

Bonneau, R.; Tsai, J.; Ruczinski, I.; Chivian, D.; Rohl, C.; Strauss, C. E. M.; Baker, D. (2001). "Rosetta in CASP4: Progress in ab initio protein structure prediction". Proteins: Structure, Function, and Genetics 45: 119126. doi:10.1002/prot.1170.PMID 11835488. edit

ROBETTA prediction server

Yeast work[edit]

Baker, D.; Hicke, L.; Rexach, M.; Schleyer, M.; Schekman, R. (1988). "Reconstitution of SEC gene product-dependent intercompartmental protein transport". Cell 54 (3): 335 344. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(88)90196-1. PMID 3293799. edit

Baker, D.; Wuestehube, L.; Schekman, R.; Botstein, D.; Segev, N. (1990). "GTP-binding Ypt1 protein and Ca2+ function independently in a cell-free protein transport reaction". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 87 (1): 355 359. Bibcode:1990PNAS...87..355B.doi:10.1073/pnas.87.1.355. PMC 53262. PMID 2104983 . edit

References[edit]
1. Jump up^ http://www.bakerlab.org Baker laboratory website 2. Jump up^ http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/ Rosetta@home project homepage 3. Jump up^ Hand, E. (2010). "Citizen science: People power". Nature 466 (7307): 685 687.doi:10.1038/466685a. PMID 20686547. edit 4. Jump up^ Cooper, S.; Khatib, F.; Treuille, A.; Barbero, J.; Lee, J.; Beenen, M.; Leaver-Fay, A.; Baker, D.; Popovi, Z.; Players, F. (2010). "Predicting protein structures with a multiplayer online game". Nature 466 (7307): 756 760. Bibcode:2010Natur.466..756C.doi:10.1038/nature09304. PMC 2956414. PMID 2068657 4. edit

5. Jump up^ Leila Gray (November 24, 2008). "University of Washington biochemist David Baker to receive 2008 Sackler International Prize in Biophysics for discoveries in protein folding". University of Washington. Retrieved April 29, 2013. 6. Jump up^ "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter B". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 5 May 2011.

External links[edit]

University of Washington Faculty Wepage Baker Research Group Institute for Protein Design