| Meet the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Vatsan Raman Professor of Biochemistry |
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Research area Developing technologies at the intersection of biochemistry, microbiology, computation and engineering to understand the fundamental principles of biomolecular and cellular systems. Taking a systems and synthetic biology approach to understanding and engineering biological systems at protein-wide and genome-wide scales.
What excites you about your work?
“I like to think of research in my laboratory as ‘use-inspired basic science,’ which integrates the curiosity-driven quest to understand how nature works with the practical aim of solving specific societal problems. Almost every project is guided by the question: How can society or humanity benefit from this? We focus on understanding the relationship between sequence and function in biology. For example, we investigate how changes in a protein’s sequence or how changes in an organism’s genome affect its function. That’s the basic science question. From an application perspective, we explore ways to engineer proteins and genomes to acquire new functions. For instance, we design proteins to detect environmental contaminants or modify genomes to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”
What do you hope to achieve?
“This is an exciting time to be in biotechnology with such explosive growth. Biotechnology is changing the world at an astounding pace. What motivates me is bringing our lab discoveries to life. As a postdoc, the patents I developed helped launch a company. Now, as a faculty member in Wisconsin, I am excited to continue that trend. I enjoy balancing my academic pursuits of papers and grants with the entrepreneurial focus on milestones and investments. Looking ahead, I aim to pursue research that not only advances scientific knowledge but also translates into real-world applications that benefit society.”
Since his arrival at UW, Vatsan has made it clear that he wants to collaborate with WARF to partner with industry so that his research can solve real problems. I’m excited to make that happen.
Want to learn more?
Jennifer Gottwald, [email protected], 608.960.9854