Main projects: Small molecule inhibitors of the group II intron splicing are potent antifungal agents. • Developed two fluorescent assays for high throughput screening for splicing inhibitors • Carried out HTS at Yale Center for Molecular Discovery (with help for the staff) • Conducted extensive SAR for the identified hits: o Determined IC50 values and inhibition constants (Ki) for the identified small molecules using both fluorescent and radioanalytic assays o Determined MIC values for Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida parapsilosis growth in the presence of small molecule inhibitors • Tested human cell viability in the presence of the identified inhibitors in HEK-293T, Huh7.5 and HeLa cell lines

Domain 3 as a catalytic effector of the ai5 gamma group II intron: structural and kinetic studies. • Designed and kinetically characterized WT and mutant constructs to determine the role of Domain 3 in the group II intron splicing. • Identified long-range tertiary interactions involving Domain 3 by NAIM/NAIS and UV-crosslinking

My projects included probing of aminoacyl –tRNA-synthetase interactions with the sugar-phosphate backbone of its cognate tRNA using Nucleotide Analog Interference Mapping (NAIM) and mutational analysis of the novel hammerhead-like ribozyme with altered substrate specificity.