Dr Merridee Ann Wouters

Research Interests:
After graduating in physics, I worked for a year as a clinical physicist in radiotherapy at the Queensland Radium Institute. During this period I became convinced of the need for molecular therapies for cancer. I completed a PhD in bioinformatics in the School of Physics at UNSW. This work investigated structural interactions in proteins and eventually became a passion to understand proteins as machines. My current work focuses on analysis of data from multiple omics platforms to enable precision medicine approaches to diagnosis and therapeutics.

Prior computational work focused on two major projects in genetics and thiol-based redox signalling.

The Gentrepid candidate gene prediction project uses data in biological database to prioritize genes underlying inherited diseases.

My work in thiol-based redox signalling aims to understand redox switches in proteins. It uses bioinformatic and computational chemistry techniques to differentiate structural and redox-active disulfides and characterize the function of redox-active disulfides.

Broad Research Areas:
Cancer Omics, Molecular Structure & Drug Design, Genetics - Genome Analysis

Qualifications:
PhD

Society Memberships & Professional Activities:
ABACBS

Specific Research Keywords:
Bioinformatics, Cancer Omics, Protein Structure Modelling, Computational Biology, Oxidative stress, Candidate Gene Prediction