Rhiju Das (born 1978 in Houston, Texas[citation needed]) is a computational biochemist and a professor of biochemistry and physics at Stanford University. Research in his lab seeks a predictive understanding of how RNA molecules and their complexes form molecular machines fundamental to life.[2]
Rhiju Das | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | EteRNA |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | Stanford University |
| Doctoral advisor | |
| Other academic advisors | David Baker |
| Website | daslab |
Education
Das was trained as a physicist before switching to biochemistry. His undergraduate education was at Harvard, in physics, followed by master's research as a Marshall scholar at Cambridge University and University College London in experimental cosmology and molecular phylogenetics. He completed his Ph.D. in physics at Stanford University, supervised by Sebastian Doniach and Daniel Herschlag.
Career
Das was a Jane Coffin Childs postdoctoral fellow working on protein structure prediction with David Baker at the University of Washington.[3] He joined Stanford’s biochemistry department in 2009 and was promoted with tenure in 2016. He was selected to be a Howard Hughes investigator in 2021,[4] and co-founded the RNA design startup Inceptive that same year.[5]
Research
Das develops methods to simulate and computationally design RNA molecules as well as experimental methods to infer RNA structure from multidimensional chemical mapping measurements.[6] Integrating these efforts, Das directs the Eterna massive open laboratory, which integrates an internet-scale videogame with massively parallel experiments and machine learning.[7] The project aims to empower citizen scientists to invent medicine.[8]
In 2020, Das and his staff used the Eterna platform to investigate potentially shelf-stable RNA vaccines for COVID-19.[9] An interview with Das about this work was featured in an episode of Nova, "Decoding COVID-19", in May 2020.[10]
Das also is known for his work on demonstrating the application of cryo-electron microscopy to accelerate the structure determination of RNA.[11] He helped launch and served as an assessor for the first RNA category in the Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction in 2022.[12]
References
- ^ "OSSM alumnus on front lines of researching COVID-19 vaccine". www.ossmfoundation.org. May 22, 2020. Archived from the original on April 18, 2022. Retrieved on 18 April 2022.
- ^ https://profiles.stanford.edu/rhiju-das Faculty profile
- ^ https://www.dropbox.com/s/507ly1p2f25kojp/RhijuDas_CurriculumVitae.pdf?dl=0 CV
- ^ "Three faculty announced as HHMI investigators". 23 September 2021.
- ^ Toews, Rob. "A Wave Of Billion-Dollar Language AI Startups Is Coming". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
- ^ Cheng, Clarence Yu; Chou, Fang-Chieh; Kladwang, Wipapat; Tian, Siqi; Cordero, Pablo; Das, Rhiju (2 June 2015). "Consistent global structures of complex RNA states through multidimensional chemical mapping". eLife. 4: e07600. doi:10.7554/eLife.07600. PMC 4495719. PMID 26035425.
- ^ "RNA Game Lets Players Help Find a Biological Prize". The New York Times. 11 January 2011.
- ^ Hotz, Robert Lee (3 May 2016). "Videogamers Are Recruited to Fight Tuberculosis and Other Ills". Wall Street Journal – via www.wsj.com.
- ^ Skarky, Brent (25 May 2020). "Oklahoman leading charge to find vaccine for COVID-19". KFOR-TV.
- ^ Holt, Sarah (13 May 2020). "Decoding COVID-19". Nova. Decoding COVID-19.
{{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter|agency=ignored (help) - ^ Kappel, Kalli; Zhang, Kaiming; Su, Zhaoming; Watkins, Andrew M.; Kladwang, Wipapat; Li, Shanshan; Pintilie, Grigore; Topkar, Ved V.; Rangan, Ramya; Zheludev, Ivan N.; Yesselman, Joseph D.; Chiu, Wah; Das, Rhiju (July 2020). "Accelerated cryo-EM-guided determination of three-dimensional RNA-only structures". Nature Methods. 17 (7): 699–707. doi:10.1038/s41592-020-0878-9. ISSN 1548-7105. PMC 7386730.
- ^ Das, Rhiju; Kretsch, Rachael C.; Simpkin, Adam J.; Mulvaney, Thomas; Pham, Phillip; Rangan, Ramya; Bu, Fan; Keegan, Ronan M.; Topf, Maya; Rigden, Daniel J.; Miao, Zhichao; Westhof, Eric (December 2023). "Assessment of three‐dimensional RNA structure prediction in CASP15". Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics. 91 (12): 1747–1770. doi:10.1002/prot.26602. ISSN 0887-3585.