Alex Herbert's Info Page

Research Interests

I am interested in protein structure and function prediction. I have been working on extending the capabilities of the structure prediction servers hosted by the Structural Bioinformatics Group at Imperial College London. You can take a look at the new PHYRE server. The old 3D-PSSM server can be found here (but not for much longer as it is due for retirement).

My work has been focussed on the ab initio prediction of protein structure. I am using fragment assembly combined with simulated annealing to fold protein chains. Below is an example model of the Cro repressor from Bacteriophage lambda (PDB code 1orc).

The final structure has a Root Mean Square Deviation (RMSD) to the native of 3.7 Angstroms over 64 residues.

C.V.

  • B.Sc. (Hons) Biochemistry, University of Leeds, 1995-1998
  • Post-graduate research in enzymology, Univeristy of Glasgow, 1998-1999
  • I.T. Consultant, PwC Consulting, 2000-2002
  • M.Res. Bioinformatics, University of York, 2002-2003

Hobbies

I am an avid outdoor enthusiast. Among my arsenal of activities are mountain biking, snowboarding, rock and ice-climbing, mountaineering and sky-diving. I am currently looking forward to a summer mountaineering tour of France and a possible expedition to Tibet.

Alternatively, if you don't find me out on an adventure in the wild I'll probably be watching movies or down the pub for a few soother's.

Contact

If you have any questions then please contact me at alex.herbert@imperial.ac.uk.