George Vasmatzis
Home Address:
12309 Village Square Ter. #402
Rockville, MD. 20852
Work Address:
Molecular Modeling Section
Laboratory of Molecular Biology
National Cancer Institute
National Institutes of Health
37 CONVENT DR MSC 4255, Building 37, Room 4B14
BETHESDA, MD 20892-4255
Home phone #: (301) 984-8846
Work phone #: (301) 402-0436
E-mail: vasm@lily.nci.nih.gov
visa status: permanent resident (USA)
OBJECTIVE:
A computational biology or a bioinformatics position. My main interest
is to work in an interdisciplinary environment where collaborative research
with experimentalists can lead to outcomes with clinical applications.
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY:
4/96 - Present, Research Fellow at the Laboratory
of Molecular Biology, NCI, NIH
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Protein Engineering and Antibody Modeling:
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Using antibody engineering techniques to improve anti-cancer drugs (immunotoxins).
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Stabilization of protein structure.
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Design of mutations to decrease drug toxicity.
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Design of single chain peptide-b2-A2 MHC molecule.
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Modeling of cancer-targeting antibodies.
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Bioinformatics:
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Searching the EST data base to find new differentiation antigens (Prostate).
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Clustering ESTs that belong to the same cDNA clone and identifying their
tissue specificity.
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Finding EST clusters that represent mRNAs that are cancer specific (Prostate,
Breast, Sarcoma)
2/93 - 3/96, Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Biomedical Engineering,
Boston University
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Computational Biology:
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Development of an approximate potential to simulate solvation.
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Computational approach to study peptide binding motifs for different MHC
molecules.
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Modeling: Homologous Extension.
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Prediction of the MHC peptide complex.
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Modeling of T-cell receptors.
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Study of the MHC-TCR complex
3/90 - 2/93, Research Assistant at Biomedical Engineering, Boston
University.
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Computational Biology:
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Structure prediction of hypervariable loops of immunoglobulins.
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Developing Monte Carlo methods to predict the structure of loops.
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Developing lattice models to study structure prediction methods
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9/89 - 3/90, Visiting Scientist at the Francis Bitter National
Magnet Lab, MIT
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Magnetic Stimulator: Pulse shaping, optimum induced current path,
strength-duration curves, design and construction of the pulser, magnet
design.
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1/88 - 8/89, Research Assistant at Electrical Engineering, Purdue
University
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Simulation and modeling of a capacitive-discharge ignition system using
the Finite Elements method to model the power transformer.
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1/85 - 12/87, Student Assistant at Electrical Engineering, Texas
Tech University
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Designed and constructed electronic circuits for an interferometer.
EDUCATION
1/90 - 5/93 Ph. D. in Biomedical Engineering, Boston University,
Boston, Massachusetts.
Thesis: New Approaches to Constrained Minimization in Protein Structure
Determination.
1/88 - 8/89 M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Purdue University,
W. Lafayette, Indiana (GPA 5.7/6.0).
Thesis: Design of a Capacitive-discharge ignition system using Finite
Elements to model the power transformer
1/85 - 12/87 B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Texas Tech. University,
Lubbock, Texas (GPA 3.8/4.0).
Honors: Held Engineering scholarship, President's/Dean's List 8/85
- 12/87, Magna Cum Laude.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Discovery
of three New Genes Specifically Expressed in Human Prostate by expressed
sequence tag database analysis. G Vasmatzis, M Essand, U Brinkmann,
B Lee, I Pastan(1998). Proc. Nat. Acad of Science USA, 95(1):300-304
The Crystal Structure of the Disulfide-stabilized Fv Fragment of Anticancer
Antibody B1: Conformational Influence of an Engineered Disulfide Bond O
Almog, I Benhar, G Vasmatzis, M Tordova, B Lee, I Pastan, GL Gilliland(1998).
Proteins (in press)
Stabilization
of Protein Structure. B Lee, G. Vasmatzis (1997). Curr Opin
Biotechnology 8(4):423-428
Stabilization
of a recombinant Fv fragment by base-loop interconnection and v(h)-v(l)
permutation. U Brinkmann, A D Carlo, G Vasmatzis, N Kurochkina,
R Beers, B Lee, I Pastan(1997). J Mol.Biol 268(1):107-117.
Determination
of Atomic Desolvation Energies from the Structures of Crystallized Proteins
C Zhang, G Vasmatzis, J. Cornette and Charles DeLisi(1997). J Mol.Biol
267(3):707-726.
Computational
determination of Side Chain Specificity for Pockets in Class I MHC Molecules
G Vasmatzis, C Zhang, J. Cornette and Charles DeLisi(1996). Mol.Immunology
33(16):1231-1239.
TcR
Recognition of the MHC-peptide Dimer: Structural Properties of a Ternary
Complex G Vasmatzis, J. Cornette , U Sezerman,Charles DeLisi(1996).
J Mol.Biol 261(1):72-89.
Predicting
Immunoglobulin-like Hypervariable Loops. G. Vasmatzis, R.C.
Brower and C DeLisi (1994). Biopolymers 34:1669-1680.
Exhaustive
conformational search and simulated annealing for models of lattice peptides.
R.C. Brower, G. Vasmatzis, M. Siverman and Charles DeLisi (1993).
Biopolymers 33:329-334.
Constrained minimization using adaptive Monte Carlo in protein structure
determination. G. Vasmatzis Boston University (1993) Ph.D. Thesis.
Design of a Capacitive-discharge ignition system using Finite Elements
to model the power transformer G. Vasmatzis Purdue University (1989)
MS. Thesis.
PATENTS Stabilization of an immunoglobulin fragment by base-loop
interconnection and chain permutation. U Brinkmann, G Vasmatzis,
N Kurochkina, B Lee, I Pastan US Patent Appl# 60/042, 3507
REVIEWED MANUSCRIPTS for Proc. Nat. Acad of Science, Protein
Engineering, Biochemistry and others...
SPECIFIC COMPUTER SKILLS Use of BLAST, FASTA, GCG, QUANTA, CHARMM,
CM-FORTRAN, FORTRAN, GL.
REFERENCES
Dr. Ira Pastan, Chief, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, National Cancer
Institute, National Institutes of Health CONVENT DR MSC 4255, Building
37, Room 4E16, BETHESDA, MD 20892-4255 Phone: (301) 496-4797 e-mail: pasta@helix.nih.gov
Dr. B.K. Lee, Section Chief, Molecular Modeling Section, Laboratory
of Molecular Biology, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of
Health, CONVENT DR MSC 4255, Building 37, Room 4B15, BETHESDA, MD 20892-4255
Phone: (301) 496-6580 e-mail: bkl@helix.nih.gov
Dr. Charles DeLisi , Dean College of Engineering, Boston University,
44 Cummington St., Boston MA 02215, Phone: (617) 353-2800 e-mail: delisi@bu.edu
Dr. James L Cornette, Professor of Mathematics, Iowa State University
Phone: (515) 294 -8165, e-mail: cornette@iastate.edu
Dr. U. Brinkmann, visiting scientist, Laboratory of Molecular Biology,
National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, CONVENT DR MSC
4255, Building 37, Room 4B20, BETHESDA, MD 20892-4255 Phone: (301) 402-2708
e-mail: uli@helix.nih.gov
Dr. Rashid Bashir, Staff Process Engineer, National Semiconductor Phone:
(408) 721-7967, e-mail: bashir@berlioz.nsc.com