Bob Duda works in the laboratory of Dr. Roger Hendrix where he is Co-PI on the grant that funds the lab's major grant to study bacteriophage assembly.

Laboratory members include Brian Firek, Welkin Pope Chambers, Dan-Ju Tso, Jianfei Hua, Rob Edwards, Bonnie La, Rob Ferdman and Mary Hasek plus Ching-Chung Ko and Dan Russel in the PBI Genome Center.

Research interests: We study the assembly of bacteriophage virions as model systems to understand how proteins assembly into large complexes and how these complexes act together in macromolecular complexes. We have found that there are coordinated conformational and covalent changes that occur during and after assembly of phage capsids and we are gradually learning more about these processes and how proteins use such covalent and conformational changes to regulate their activities and assembly interactions. We are also trying to devise new and better ways to capture structural and biochemical snapsots of protein complexes as they assemble and transform after initial assembly.

Experimental systems: Currently much of our work on bacteriophage assembly is focused on looking at the structure, assembly and molecular genetics of Bacteriophage HK97 capsids. We also have ongoing studies of Bacteriophage Lambda tail assembly and Bacteriophage Lambda side tail fiber assembly. Newer projects include looking at the structures and assembly of the capsids of some additional phages, including D3, phi1026b, XP10 and P1.